PPC FreeNX sources or binaries?

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catmistake's picture
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Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
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PPC FreeNX sources or binaries?

I feel bad about posting a new thread when there's so many good ones... I just can't seem to get the hang of relevant searching. As you'll see.

I imagine there's a good number of you running ubuntu desktop on PPCs. I'm hoping one of you knows where to get sources or binaries for freenx.

Ya see, I have some headless servers, using vino-server when I want to use the desktop, but this means I have to have gnome auto-login a user, auto-start vino, leave the screensaver on blank requiring an account pw (after a minute), and hope no one sniffs the vnc password. Works ok (works with ARD3), but for the obvious insecurities. Then I took a look at what vino-server was doing. It eats up 50% of the processor and the memory. Yuk.

So I try something else. I thought I was trying freenx, but it turns out I was really using !M's excellent free version of nx server. Its fast. Its tiny... when its stressed it only eats like 10% of the (700MHz PIII)proc, mostly less than 1%, and the memory footprint is barely 10% (of the 512mb in this A22m). The free version allows 2 simultaneous connections (2 users).

I've been keeping some procs busy with concatinating some things, and I noticed last week that the G4/400MHz PCI Graphics I have blows away the PIII/700MHz A22m... easily 3 times as fast concating the same big files (both with edgy server). Yes, the A22m has a cruddy 5400rpm 2.5" compared to the G4s 3.5" ?rpm drives, but I don't think the drive bus differences are at all that substantial (the drive in the G4 can't max that bus, and nowadays, that bus creeps anyway).

So, after loving the !M free nx server deal on the A22m, I naturally wanted to put it on the powerhouse of a G4/400 I have, and get rid of the vino-server dependency and insecurity. Funny thing about running the same os on multiple architectures is how easy it is to forget that architecture matters. There is no !M nx server, free or otherwise, for PPC (they have a nice free client for OS X, though). OK, so I'll use freenx, the opensource free deal that seeks to match the functionality of !M... but I can't find it. I can find snippits of old posts tantalizingly mentioning step by step compile guides... but no working links. I found a link to sources, but the links were broken.

Sorry to have wasted your time with irrelevant insight into my self-fulfilling headaches... but I need someone with mad search skills to sniff out where they're hiding the sources, and/or PPC binaries for FreeNX.

(!)
aha. of course they would hide the links to the sources and compile guides on their website. nevermind, then.

Say, how about that nx technology?

catmistake's picture
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Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 1100
well... darn

for those interested, I followed instructions here to no avail... make exits with tons of errors on the first component. Little point in continuing.

If anyone gets FreeNX compiled on PPC ubuntu, I'd be interested in some pointers.

Also, any thoughts on why this sort of thing can't yet be done with OS X, I'd like to know. Its *NIX, its got an X11, I imagine it works with Xorg and Darwin... no reason OS X shouldn't serve, but no one's doing it. Sure, there's citrix and nxserver clients, there's vpn/rdc/ard clients for a single login, but I'd like to see OS X serve multiple desktops simultaneosly, not just connect to them.

---edit
more detailed build instructions here, but brain sleepy, this must wait.

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