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Google releases Neatx NX server

Posted Jul 25, 2009 12:36 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: Google releases Neatx NX server by ejr
Parent article: Google releases Neatx NX server

What? 3D: works over the network. Fonts: put them on the client, rather
than the server (or both, if you want core fonts to work too, but that's
getting quite unimportant these days).

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Posted Jul 26, 2009 13:31 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

"""
Fonts: put them on the client, rather than the server (or both, if you want core fonts to work too,
"""

Can't you just:

Xorg -query myserver.localdomain -fs tcp/myserver.localdomain:7100

and make sure xfs is running on myserver (and listening on tcp:7100) and have all the server's installed fonts available everywhere? One shouldn't have to upgrade a thin client once it is in place. Only the server.

Google releases Neatx NX server

Posted Aug 11, 2009 15:41 UTC (Tue) by Lurchi (guest, #38509) [Link]

You are confusing Server and Client.
Terminal Server == X client
Terminal (Thin) Client == X display server

So you install the fonts on the terminal server (once) and the program
will render the same on every client.

Google releases Neatx NX server

Posted Jul 27, 2009 15:31 UTC (Mon) by ejr (subscriber, #51652) [Link]

3D works, unless the app checks for direct rendering and dies otherwise. Most I've tried do that. The bandwidth requirements for video on the side of a rotating cube are kinda a problem still. And currently GLX ties you to Xlib and all its unhideable round-trips. IIRC, there's a Google SoC project on that aspect, so there's hope. But 3D also is a pain for virtualization, so I'm holding out hope that the issues will resolve themselves with time.

The font problem isn't technical, it's licensing. If you want more than bitmaps in the US, you need the appropriate license for the font. Elsewhere, the font needs licensed regardless of use pre- or post-rendering. There are good, free fonts now, but I'm sure you know apps that aren't agreeable to using anything but their pre-defined, proprietary fonts. Again, these issues could be managed, but they're a pain. Just configuring font matching is enough of a pain, anyways (not a dig, it's a difficult problem).

A VNC-like proxy sidesteps most of these. An NX proxy, well, it still runs into problems with heavy graphics (scientific visualizations, how I use it), but it does make network use feasible again.