[TUHS] X->VNC->RDP experience [was Re: X, Suntools, and the like

It has been almost 20 years since I seriously used X remotely. Even then it was mostly xterms. Almost everything I do in Linux is from bash. I run X locally mostly if I'm trying to figure out how a new release of Fedora has changed configuration files -- I run the settings apps to see what they do to the files. What follows is a bit off-topic from TUHS perspective. About 1999 I began to need to administer a bunch of Windows servers, mostly on a local network, sometimes across town, sometimes farther away. I gravitated to using VNC for Windows and soon used it occasionally for Linux and, eventually, OS X. My primary desktop environment became Windows, using PuTTY for ssh. Back then, my remote access was mostly across POTS (56k) and BRI (128k) connections. Since then, I've tried most of the Windows clients and servers. For my purposes UltraVNC (uvnc.com) is much superior to the others. The client is robust across remote connections using ssh tunnels. The server was the first to work reasonably on Vista and tends to keep up with Microsoft better than the others, in my experience. Tiger (Tight) was my second favorite(s), and I still use them occasionally, mostly on older machines that I setup before using Ultra. The biggest VNC drawbacks from my perspective have been - security (alleviated by ssh tunneling) - lack of macOS versions as robust as UltraVNC on Windows - Windows with RDP interfering with VNC server With recent macOS, Apple includes a pretty good basic VNC client, “Screen Sharing”, and a very good VNC server as “Apple Remote Desktop”. Screen Sharing doesn’t feel as responsive as the better clients on Windows, e.g., TightVNC and UltraVNC, and omits refresh options and other useful features. (Reportedly, there are plans for UltraVNC for macOS. There is a Java version of TightVNC that will run on macOS, but overall doesn’t seem as responsive as Screen Sharing. I just discovered while writing this that there is a TigerVNC dmg, so I plan to try that.) When I upgraded an XP Pro machine to Vista Pro, I discovered that Vista Pro wouldn't allow the UltraVNC server to run. That forced me to get acquainted with RDP, and I was pleasantly surprised. I knew that RDP had existed, but also knew that RDP was based on ITU-T T.128. With all the complexity associated with T.120, I had stayed away from RDP. (20+ years ago I wrote a chapter in Mainstream Videoconferencing, http://notes.technologists.com/notes/2008/02/14/mainstream-videoconferencin…, trying to make T.120 more accessible than the ITU-T docs. The T.128 doc is at http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-T.128-200806-I/en.) T.120 work started when the principals assumed that videoconferencing over POTS (H.324) would become prominent, and T.120 was intended to work on POTS connections. So it is not surprising to think of RDP as "snappy" on cascaded WiFi connections. I use RDP quite a bit to access Windows machines that don't allow/interfere with UltraVNC server. (Just now I tried to get UltraVNC server to work on a machine running Windows 10 Pro, and failed.) Besides that Windows VNC interference, the main disadvantage of RDP in my experience is lack of (freely available?) servers for Windows Home, macOS and Linux. When my primary Windows laptop failed, I decided to try a MacBook Pro. Mostly I've liked it and have liked the RDP client. Some people disparage the (Microsoft supplied) RDP client as inferior to the Windows client. The specifics of their complaints don't matter on my MacBook, but I can imagine they would be bothersome on an iMac or other larger screen. Charlie -----Original Message----- From: Larry McVoy Sent: Friday, March 17, 2017 11:21 AM To: Arthur Krewat Cc: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org Subject: Re: [TUHS] X, Suntools, and the like On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 10:39:21AM -0400, Arthur Krewat wrote: Unless VNC has evolved it's just nowhere near as snappy as RDP. Can anyone speak to that?