Carnal Reason

I do most of my blogging on a Thinkpad running Windows XP. I messed with trying to run a linux laptop, but I could not get wireless networking to work reliably and securely (i.e., with WPA enabled). On XP it’s a piece of cake.

I decided the next best thing would be to export the desktop from the linux box on the third floor to the Thinkpad, and just use the Thinkpad as a fancy terminal. My first attempt involved using Cygwin to run an X server on the laptop. It was a bit tricky, but I eventually made this work. I wasn’t very happy with the result, as it was just too slow across an 811.g connection, even using a lightweight desktop, Fluxbox.

Later I tried using VNC. In comparison to the first approach, VNC was far simpler to set up, and quite reliable. Again it was a bit too slow for more than the occasional use.

This morning I read about FreeNX in Linux Journal. I downloaded and installed the FreeNX server and client software this evening. FreeNX is pretty darn quick. It is noticeably faster than either of the first two approaches I tried. I exported KDE, a much heavier desktop than Fluxbox, and it was quite usable. Very, very slick.

Now I’m thinking that FreeNX combined with a Belkin pre-N router and card would totally rock.

Posted on June 9th, 2005 by pwyll
Filed under: General