Best remote-control software?

pickarooney

It's been a while since I set up any remote control software on my home linux machine and was wondering what people consider to be the best these days?

I've tried various incarnations of VNC and NX (Nomachine) as well as KDRC (the latter only internally) but was never too impressed with the speed of any of them. My home connection isn't the fastest in the world (2Mb/512kb) but I just think it could be smoother with the right setup.

The option to use an existing or new, parallel session would be nice.

Edit: forgot to mention I would be accessing from outside with a Windows XP box.

KAGY

pickarooney wrote: »

It's been a while since I set up any remote control software on my home linux machine and was wondering what people consider to be the best these days?

I've tried various incarnations of VNC and NX (Nomachine) as well as KDRC (the latter only internally) but was never too impressed with the speed of any of them. My home connection isn't the fastest in the world (2Mb/512kb) but I just think it could be smoother with the right setup.

The option to use an existing or new, parallel session would be nice.

Edit: forgot to mention I would be accessing from outside with a Windows XP box.

Can't imagine that anything would be that smooth with 512kb up, esp if you have any visual effects and you're shadowing the desktop. Did you mess around with any of the nx settings, reducing the number of colours etc. Or just use nx to run the program that you wanted to use?

I normally use the kde desktop, but when I'm nx'ing I normally use a custom command 'startxfce4' to start a parallel xfc desktop with no effects, or just run the program e.g kmymoney

I'm sure some uber-nerd (a term of endearment gents :-) ) will suggest ssh to a cli with PuTTY or whatever the correct term is.

Khannie

NX. I use it all the time from work. Been using it since I had 384 up and it's always been amazing. If you're not getting the performance you expect you should dig into the settings. You can increase the compression levels etc. It is an AWESOME piece of software IMO. One of the first things I install on a new machine.

pickarooney

I might give it another whirl. Must try find that tutorial I used last time.

djmarkus

NX ftw.


Dont bother with FreeNX, use the "free" edition from nomachine.com

matrim

Is NX that good?

I've been using VNC over SSH and it works but the speed isn't great, but I might give NX a go. Does it allow resumable sessions?

Khannie

matrim wrote: »

Is NX that good?

Yes, it really is that good. It puts VNC to shame over slow connections (e.g. DSL). Over a LAN there's next to nothing in it of course.

matrim wrote: »

Does it allow resumable sessions?

It does indeed.

matrim

I installed it this morning and it was breeze to setup. Also it is definitely alot faster than VNC. Even using the VNC connection through the nx client seems faster than through vncviewer.

I won't fully get rid of VNC as you can't beat just having putty and vncviewer executables on a usb key and being able to remote from any PC with them.
Also there doesn't appear to be an nx client for maemo so I will have to use continue using VNC from my phone

pickarooney

Can't connect to my dyndns at home. Router doesn't seem to be updating it for some reason.

pickarooney

Anyone want to give me a hand testing my dyndns connection?
As far as I can tell, port 22 is open/forwarded and listening but earlier I couldn't telnet it from outside.

address is pickarooney.homeunix.com

matrim

pickarooney wrote: »

Anyone want to give me a hand testing my dyndns connection?
As far as I can tell, port 22 is open/forwarded and listening but earlier I couldn't telnet it from outside.

address is pickarooney.homeunix.com

worked for me and I could connect with ssh (telnet is port 23)

pickarooney

Weird... but thanks

Tillotson

You might want to switch from password authentication.

Khannie

Or restrict access by IP, or both.

pickarooney

Tillotson wrote: »

You might want to switch from password authentication.

Switch from pass auth to what? Is this in the linux-side config of NX?

I might restrict IP access once I get it to work.

I got as far as the Windows client picking up my RSA key but then the connection timed out a couple of minutes later.

matrim

You can also use deny hosts which will restrict any IP that fails to logon with more than a set number of attempts

pickarooney

I've got the connection going now but I can't figure out how to get it to
a) just display the current open session or
b) open a new parallel session with XFCE

edit: I Think I got a) using the 'shadow' option

Khannie

You don't use NX for viewing display 0 (i.e. your currently active desktop on your monitor). It starts a new X session (which you can disconnect from and reconnect to later if you wish). If you want to use it to display xfce you need to select "custom" and tell it to run /usr/bin/<whatever_the_name_of_the_xfce_wm_executable_is> when it starts up.

pickarooney

The shadow option allows to view the current active display (this is the most useful option for remote assistance) but my crap upload speed slows it down a lot.

Khannie

How bad is your upload?

pickarooney

About 400kbps at last count and I keep forgetting to turn off bittorrent!

pickarooney

I still can't get this to work - every time it times out trying to connect to the nx server. Upload is at full capacity (about 400kbps).

Any ideas?