LBX, FreeNX, NoMachine's NX: faster, significantly faster still, amazing, respectively. The latter is easy to install and configure too.
tightVNC...
-- on server (remote system): apt-get install tightvncserver
-- on client (local system) : apt-get install xtightvncviewer
-- read the man pages!
-- e.g,
xtightvncviewer -encodings tight <remote>.manchester.ac.uk:1
xtightvncviewer -encodings tight -compresslevel 9 <remote>.manchester.ac.uk:1
xtightvncviewer -encodings tight -quality 0 <remote>.manchester.ac.uk:1
xtightvncviewer -encodings zlib <remote>.manchester.ac.uk:1
LBX (Low Bandwidth X) is an X server extension which performs
compression on the X protocol. It is meant to be used in
conjunction with X applications and an X server which are
separated by a slow network connection, to improve display
and response time.
http://www.paulandlesley.org/faqs/LBX-HOWTO.html
dxpc - The Differential X Protocol Compressor
* Original Author: Brian Pane <brianp@cnet.com>
* Current Maintainer: Zachary Vonler <lightborn@mail.utexas.edu>
dxpc works in essentially the same way as LBX. However, to avoid
having to implement an X extension and modify the X server code,
dxpc uses two proxies: one that runs on the REMOTE host, like
lbxproxy, and one that runs on the LOCAL host.
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 22:10:17 +0000 From: Gavin Hamill <gdh@acentral.co.uk> To: man-lug@lists.man.ac.uk Yes. Think about using vncserver instead of trying to squeeze the inherently verbose X format over a serial link... there are a couple of different approaches here - one acts like MS Terminal Services where you log onto a 'virtual desktop' that is unseen on any physical display, (vncserver itself) and the other involves watching the current desktop via VNC (usually using a user-space wedge like 'x11vnc') However, a recent way to do this is using an X extension 'vnc.so' so you can immediately plug straight in and see the desktop and interact with the live session - I use this daily for remote support on a network of 30 Linux boxes :)
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 01:04:49 +0000 From: Ben Higginbottom <ben.higginbottom@ntlworld.com> User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.9 (Windows/20041103) In addition to vnc, take a look at NX (http://www.nomachine.com/) or freenx (http://www.kalyxo.org/) both of which compress X for network computing and I've found them to be much superior in performance terms in regards to vnc.
In my experience, as of 2006 Oct 01, having tried both over the last couple of years(?), the NoMachine version, which is now free-forever for Linux is easier to install, less buggy and faster. But a big thankyou to the FreeNX guys whose product I used for 2 years.
Simply download the packages for nclient, nxnode and nxserver, and install in that order.
Server:
dpkg -i nxproxy_1.4.0-m2-1_i386.deb nxagent_1.4.0-m2-1_i386.deb freenx_0.3.1-2_all.deb
-- simple: choose built in key from nomachine
-- better: choose custom key
nxsetup --install
OLD: nxserver --adduser ...
--passwd ...
... this adds a key to /home/<user>/.ssh/authorized_keys and adds usernames and passwords into its own
db which is now pointless as PAM is used...
Client:
dpkg -i nxclient_1.5.0-141_i386.deb
-- simple:
client: nxclient... should authenticate via built in key (with pam username and password???)
-- better: copy server:/var/lib/nxserver/home/.ssh/client.id_dsa.key to the client
OLD: on client mv this key to /usr/NX/share and chmod 644
NOW: import key into client and authenticate with pam credentials..