[H-GEN] remote display of programs

[David Jericho]

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On Fri, 2002-05-31 at 08:12, Sandra Milne wrote:
> I've used it to connect to a windows machine that was on the internet via a 
> rather slow modem. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but it could have been 
> so much worse. Any time u want a comparison, try using PCAnywhere by 
> Symantec. It's atrocious even over adsl.

I used to use VNC a lot to log in from work to home over an ADSL link.
It only became useful over that link when run at 800x600 in 8 bit
colour. No backgrounds, and disable all the guff that Windows likes to
put on its display.

What I have to say I'm very impressed with, is Windows Terminal Services
over a slow link. I was running Word, Excel, and web browsing on a
terminal session over a 33.6kbps modem, and it felt as if I was running
VNC over a much faster link.

VNC is a remote frame buffer device, in effect transferring a screenshot
over your link, whereas RDP (Windows Terminal Services) transfers GDI
commands. Things like "draw a window this big, at this point".

I know remote X sessions aren't frame buffer transfers, but how does it
work? Comparing RDP and X sessions across the LAN here, X is the
outright hog. I've seen X sessions pumping maybe 100 - 200MB over a 10
minute period. Is there any way to reduce the amount of bandwidth X
consumes?

-- 
David Jericho

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