* * * * *
X11 is alive?
Mark [1] send me an email replying to my post about X11 [2]:
> From: Mark Grosberg <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
> To:
[email protected]
> Subject: Of X11 and remote access…
> Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 13:36:10 -0400 (EDT)
>
> Sean,
>
> I read your blog post on how X11 is network enabled and thought you glossed
> over a very important point. See, X11 is network enabled in that it has
> this concept of a program is a client to a display. So yes, if I am at home
> I can run some program on my X11 machine at work and send the display over.
>
> But VNC on X11 goes one step better. It's a bit like “screen” (a program I
> still use) but for graphical apps (something I rarely use). I can have my
> X11 desktop sitting in some virtual framebuffer somewhere, connect to it,
> interact with it, go home, re-connect and it is exactly where I left it.
>
> The normal X11 networking model is such that I loose my program state every
> time I move around. At least for me, personally, I am the kind of person
> who maybe yearly reboots a computer such that I loose my working
> environment and I frequently move about to different locations.
>
> So for me, VNC on an X11 desktop makes total sense (well, screen makes even
> more sense since my main UNIX box probably doesn't have enough RAM to make
> a virtual framebuffer).
>
> Oh, and VNC is way faster too, especially TightVNC. You don't wait 6hrs for
> a window to pop up while they negotiate event masks and other nonsense that
> should not exist.
>
He does have a point, and it's one of the problems with X11—you can't
redirect a window to another display on the fly. Or, at least, I don't know
of a way to do that. It also depends upon how you work. Me? I don't tend to
leave applications running for any great length of time (especially graphical
programs) because I have this irrational fear that they'll just keep sucking
memory up until the machine becomes unusable.
[1]
http://gladesoft.com/
[2]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2007/10/07.1
Email author at
[email protected]
