Nx
NX aims at providing stateful desktop sessions, similar to VNC, but with sound and requiring much less bandwidth. One NX implementation is FreeNX.
Install NX as an application
As a first step, create a connection from your local computer to your local computer, just to make sure it works:
- get the NX client, node and server rpm package from www.nomachine.com
- Install NX:
rpm -ivh nx*.rpm
- Start NX as root:
nxserver --start
- Verify as user root that the NX server is active
nxserver --status
- Connect to the NX server
nxclient --wizard
Continue as advised.
Now, to connect from a remote host, open the 500# ports in your target host's firewall. If you do not know how to do this, you can also shut down the firewall.
Install NX as display manager
Maybe you have a very old computer and want to make it a thin client to a faster one (the faster one acting as terminal server). Then you want the old computer to display the NX client program right after startup, without a user having to log in. So you want Nx to be your display manager. Here are some changes I did to /etc/init.d/xdm to make this happen:
case "$1" in start) X & export DISPLAY=:0 /usr/NX/bin/nxclient while true; do sleep 9; done
Tweaking NX
Almost everything is very fast and low-latency with NX. However, Window resizing effects are slow. Switch them off, e.g. in KDE using kpersonalizer:
kpersonalizer -> chose Next till you come to the Eyecandy-O-Meter -> Show details -> Window Moving/Resizing Effects
KDE 4
In order to run KDE 4 in an NX session, you may need to change the call startkde to startkde4 in /usr/NX/etc/node.cfg and /usr/NX/scripts/setup/nxnode. This is the case if your KDE is started with the command startkde4.
TroubleShooting
not available
If you get an error message that NX is not available or has been disabled, re-install it:
/usr/NX/bin/nxserver --uninstall /usr/NX/bin/nxserver --install
maximum session number exceeded
List your user sessions with
nxkill --list
Then kill them.
no sessions are active
enable users
If you cannot log in to the NX server and get an error message like
maximum session number exceeded
AND
nxkill --list
shows you there are no active user sessions, this can be the case because your user is not enabled to log in. To find out if your user is enabled to log in, use
nxserver --userlist
You will be able to log in with all users that are shown then.
Re-install NX
If no sessions are shown, you will have to re-install NX:
/usr/NX/bin/nxserver --uninstall /usr/NX/bin/nxserver --install
See also
- http://www.nomachine.com - where to get NX