Month: April 2015

Removing old NX packages from tree

I already sent the last rites announce a few days ago, but here is a more detailed post on the coming up removal of “old” NX packages. Long story short: migrate to X2Go if possible, or use the NX overlay (“best-effort” support provided).
2015/04/26 note: treecleaning done!

Affected packages

Basically, all NX clients and servers except x2go and nxplayer! Here is the complete list with some specific last rites reasons:

  • net-misc/nxclient,net-misc/nxnode,net-misc/nxserver-freeedition: binary-only original NX client and server. Upstream has moved on to a closed-source technology, and this version  bundles potientally vulnerable binary code. It does not work as well as before with current libraries (like Cairo).
  • net-misc/nxserver-freenx, net-misc/nxsadmin: the first open-source alternative server. It could be tricky to get working, and is not updated anymore (last upstream activity around 2009)
  • net-misc/nxcl, net-misc/qtnx: an open-source alternative client (last upstream activity around 2008)
  • net-misc/neatx: Google’s take on a NX server, sadly it never took off (last upstream activity around 2010)
  • app-admin/eselect-nxserver (an eselect module to switch active NX server, useless without these servers in tree)

Continue using these packages on Gentoo

These packages will be dropped from the main tree by the end of this month (2015/04), and then only available in the NX overlay. They will still be supported there in a “best effort” way (no guarantee how long some of these packages will work with current systems).

So, if one of these packages still works better for you, or you need to keep them around before migrating, just run:

# layman -a nx

Alternatives

While it is not a direct drop-in replacement, x2go is the most complete solution currently in Gentoo tree (and my recommendation), with a lot of possible advanced features, active upstream development, … You can connect to net-misc/x2goserver with net-misc/x2goclient, net-misc/pyhoca-gui, or net-misc/pyhoca-cli.

If you want to try NoMachine’s (the company that created NX) new system, well the client is available in Portage as net-misc/nxplayer. The server itself is not packaged yet, if you are interested in it, this is bug #488334

Switching from GandiBlog/Dotclear2 to WordPress4

This blog was hosted by GandiBlog since mid-2006. Thanks to the Gandi folks, it has served me well, though it was starting to show its age.

Now I intend to revive this blog, and the first step was to finally move it on my server, switching to WordPress in the process! The rest of this post will detail how I did the switch, keeping the blog content and links. Continue reading “Switching from GandiBlog/Dotclear2 to WordPress4”