FreeNX future

Hum, it’s been some time since I last blogged on these Gentoo packages I handle! Let’s catch up a bit!

There is a thread running on freenx mailing list about current lack of new commits in freenx SVN. Main developer seems to be MIA (after starting a migration to github) and freenx as it is needs to be rewritten from scratch anyway (some work had been done in a freenx-redesign branch, but it seems abandoned too now). Of course, the ideal thing would be to finally get NX natively in X.org, but that’s not for the close future

So where does this leave us? Debian/Ubuntu packagers have created a freenx team, and manage a bzr tree with more and more fixes and updates (like shadowing local X sessions and stubs for guest sessions). Once I’ve figured out how to “tag” gentoo versions from it, this will probably be the new source for freenx packages (at least until upstream resumes development)

And if you want to try an alternative GPL server, remember to try x2go from the NX overlay πŸ˜‰ I have not added them to main portage tree yet, but hope to do so real soon ™

5 thoughts on “FreeNX future”

  1. Hi, could you post some more details about x2go? I use nxserver-freenx extensively and my job depends on accessing remote linux desktop so I’m very interested in any alternative I can have.

    Of course, I can use nx overlay, but I would like to hear some of advantages compared to nxserver πŸ™‚ thanks.

  2. Of course! There are a few details in my previous post here. In addition to the pros and cons cited there, there’s a thin client environment available (not tested though), its code is "cleaner" than freenx and easier to setup at ssh level (as it does not try to mimick nxserver, they built their own system on standard SSH login and NX libs), and they’re adding some nice features (easy folder share via sshfs/fuse, pulseaudio tunneling in new client, …)

    For testing, it can be installed in parallel with freenxΒ  (as it does not use the nx user system)

    That said, I’d love a version without postgresql requirement for small setups (like remote desktop from home)

  3. Hi, I’ve got some problems downloading/compiling those packages.

    So… when exactly does it mean "real soon"? πŸ™‚

    I promise to be one of firsts who test those ebuilds!

  4. I’ve updated freenx ebuild to use tarballs from the the debian freenx team, so now I can work on moving some of the X2go ebuilds to portage

    If it’s not done today, you can still of course fill bugreports on the overlay packages, noting in the title they’re from the overlay (something like "[NX overlay] bug in …").

    Oh well in fact I’ve already started moving base client and server to portage, so "real soon" is really "real soon" now πŸ˜‰

Comments are closed.