8.4. Using FreeNX to Run Linux from Solaris, Mac OS X, or Linux

Problem

You don't want to remotely access your nice Linux box from Windows—you have a Solaris, Mac OS X, or Linux PC that you want to use. How do you set them up as FreeNX clients?

Solution

Just the same as on Windows, as in the previous recipe. After setting up the FreeNX server, download and install the appropriate client from NoMachine's download page (http://www.nomachine.com/download.php).

Start the NX Connection Wizard with the /usr/NX/bin/nxclient--wizard command.

Configure it in exactly the same way as for Windows; the client interface looks the same on all platforms.

There is one important difference: when you copy the client key, it goes into /usr/NX/share/keys/. Otherwise, it's all the same.

Debian users, if you get an error message saying that you need libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 and libpng.so when you try to install nxclient, it means you need to track down these old libraries and install them. They should be in the Debian Woody repositories.

Fedora users need the compat-libstdc++-296 package.

Discussion

When NoMachine released its 2.0 versions, it left FreeNX behind. FreeNX 1.5 doesn't work with NoMachine 2.0 clients without a bit of tweaking, and even then it may not work reliably. At the time this was written, you could download older NoMachine clients from Industrial-Statistics.com (http://www.industrial-statistics.com/info/nxclients?IndStats=47ebcaa422e76eba8af14a1b6f31d971).

Another option is to modify FreeNX 1.5 to work with the NoMachine 2.0 client. See FreeNX FAQ/Problem Solving (http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=FreeNX_FAQ/Problem_Solving).

You may be asking why use FreeNX on Unix platforms, when tunneling X over OpenSSH is standard and easy? Because FreeNX offers significantly faster performance, especially over slow links. Kurt Pfeifle, one of the primary FreeNX developers, says that "a full-screen KDE 3.2 session start-up sequence transfers 4.1 MB of data over the wire, if it is run over a plain vanilla remote X connection…if run over NX, the second startup data transfer volume drops down to 35 KB, due to the combined compression, cache and minute differential effects of NX," (Linux Journal online, "The Arrival of NX, Part 4" at http://www.Linuxjournal.com/node/8489/).

So, this means that users on a dial-up link of at least 40 Kbps will experience little perceptible lag. Using a lightweight window manager like IceWM or Xfce will see even better performance—if you can get them to work.

See Also