[UFO Chicago] remote desktop software

[Matthew T. Gibbs]

Hi John-


It looks like the site that you found covers the performance and security issues of VNC and RDP.  My suggestion for a Linux remote desktop would be the NoMachine NX software, which basically automates tunneling an X desktop session over SSH and has both Windows and Linux clients.  I've found that it's both secure and fast.  Another option would be RDP over SSH.  From my experience RDP performs better than VNC and I believe that there is an RDP component for the X server, though I've not used it personally.  I have used KRDC to access Windows RDP servers and it works very well.

There is a caveat to all of this though - many corporate firewalls block SSH and likely also block simple VNC and RDP connections.  Of course, your mileage may vary, but I've not had good luck with this.

HTH

Matt



________________________________
From: John Bulger <johnbulger at uicalumni.org>
To: ufo at ufo.chicago.il.us
Sent: Fri, November 6, 2009 2:46:13 AM
Subject: [UFO Chicago] remote desktop software

First off, I am not a programmer or system administrator, just a user. I do have an interest in migrating from Windows to one of the free UNIX style operating systems. Thus, the reason that I came across and subscribed to the mailing list.

That said, I was looking into the possibility of using something like VNC to operate a desktop machine remotely on a lightweight, low cost laptop. My hope is that this way I can purchase the best hardware most cost effectively and still enjoy mobility. Anyway, I came across the site below:

http://ask.metafilter.com/60688/What-are-the-limitations-of-current-remote-desktop-applications

I would like to invite anyone interested to provide their own comments. Those on the site are more than a couple of years old and assume that Windows XP is being used. I personally would prefer recommendations based on UNIX, if that makes any difference. Some on the site would suggest using Microsoft's Remote Desktop. I may decide to maintain a copy of Windows on a partition of my machine, in which case Remote Desktop may be considered an option I suppose and comments on that are also welcome.

LogMeIn and UltraVNC appear to be the other favorites. Hamachi, an add-on to LogMeIn was also recommended for avoiding any issues with firewalls though someone also suggests that they may just as easily be avoided by using a non-standard port for RDP and VNC clients. Again, anyone care to agree or disagree?

Finally, if anyone wishes to recommend a laptop suitable for this purpose, please let me know.

Thanks.

John 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://ufo.chicago.il.us/pipermail/ufo/attachments/20091106/18255c44/attachment.htm