[gentoo-user] vmplayer over ssh - very very very slow mouse

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   Somewhat off topic other than both machines are Gentoo.

   Using my AMD64 machine locally I ssh into a remote AMD64 machine
350 miles away using the following command:

ssh -X -Y -C remoteaddress

   At this point I start vmplayer and from the vmplayer GUI I start a
Windows XP VM on the remote machine displaying it locally. The machine
works fine except the mouse is so slow the VM is almost unusable. Move
the mouse an inch locally and maybe 5-10 seconds later the Win XP
mouse cursor jumps to a new position. There is no sense locally that
you have _any_ control over the remote cursor. It just sits there on
my screen and then suddenly jumps to a new position.

   In general graphics within XP over shh are fine - nearly as fast as
running an X app on the same machine. When I click on something I get
a new app screen within XP painted and displayed here quickly. Only
the mouse cursor is so slow as to make the machine very difficult to
use.

   I'm wondering if there might be a better way to run that sort of
setup so that the cursor responsiveness is more reasonable?

   Currently the remote machine only has vmplayer plus other tools as
installed by the vmware-workstation package. Workstation is not
licensed and not enabled.

Thanks,
Mark