Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Grant Taylor <gtaylor@×××××××××××××××××××××.net>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] How to run X11 apps remotely?
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 19:27:50
Message-Id: b7a33a53-68f4-bc26-5c92-23c83cfd300e@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] How to run X11 apps remotely? by Grant Edwards
1 On 3/22/22 10:41 AM, Grant Edwards wrote:
2 > How does one run "modern" X11 apps remotely?
3
4 Xvnc
5
6 As in run an Xvnc server as an X11 server / display. Point your
7 programs at that display / server. Then have a VNC client connect to
8 said VNC server.
9
10 > Using ssh -X or ssh -Y works fine for older applications, but not for
11 > things that use "modern" toolkits. Modern tookit designers appear to
12 > have adopted a life mission to maximize the number of client-server
13 > round-trips required for even a trivial event like a keystroke in a
14 > text box.
15
16 Yes. The back and forth between the X11 client (program) and server
17 (display) is quite chatty and latency sensitive.
18
19 The thing that running the Xvnc server on the same system as the X11
20 clients is that the latency between the two that the X11 protocol sees
21 is effectively as small as possible. Then VNC's Remote Frame Buffer
22 (RFB) protocol is more forgiving with latency between the VNC server and
23 the VNC client.
24
25 > As a result, even with a 5-10Mbps remote connection, it takes several
26 > minutes to enter a string of even a few characters. A mouseclick on
27 > a button can take a minute or two to get processed. Resizing a window
28 > pretty much means it's time for a cuppa.
29
30 Been there.
31
32 Done that.
33
34 > Opening chrome and loading a web page can take 10-15 minutes. No
35 > activity at all on the screen, but the network connection to the
36 > remote machine is saturated at 5Mbps for minutes at a time. WTF?
37
38 You also want to minimize spurious / superfluous updates that aren't
39 actually /needed/. E.g. things fading in / out / animations.
40
41 > I do not want a "remote desktop". I just want to run a single
42 > application on a remote machine and have its window show up locally.
43
44 You can adjust the size of the Xvnc's display so that it's the size of
45 just the application in question. You also don't need the full desktop
46 to display on that screen.
47
48 > Back in the day, I used to run X11 apps remotely through dial-up
49 > connections, and most of them were a little sluggish but still
50 > actually usable...
51
52 The X11 protocol has changed a lot over the years. Older versions of
53 X11 are less chatty than newer versions of X11.
54
55 Reducing color depth also helps reduce the amount of data that needs to
56 be exchanged.
57
58 > X11 transparent network support was its killer feature,
59 I completely agree. Especially when you start running different
60 programs on different systems / users / contexts.
61
62 > but for all practical purpopses, that feature seems to have been
63 > killed.
64
65 I don't think that's true.
66
67 I run programs like this on the daily. E.g. Lotus Notes 9.x running on
68 an old CentOS 6.x VM (last supported version) displaying on contemporary
69 Gentoo on my workstation. The latency is noticeable if you know what to
70 look for. But the latency is also quite tolerable.
71
72 I find web browsing to be considerably slower than my Notes client which
73 I use interactively on the daily, if not hourly.
74
75
76
77 --
78 Grant. . . .
79 unix || die

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] How to run X11 apps remotely? Grant Taylor <gtaylor@×××××××××××××××××××××.net>
[gentoo-user] Re: How to run X11 apps remotely? Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@×××××.com>