Any opinions on Nomachines as a remote desktop

Support & Help Requests
#1

So I am considering trying out a remote desktop product called NomachineNX for my home use. I have a completely WIRED lan with a mix of Ubuntu Mate 15.10 and Windows 7 machines on it. My question is have any of you good folks got an opinion ? thanks Theakson

here’s the blurb

#2

I suggest X2Go. It uses the NX protocol you refer to and is very easy. I use it to access my Linux desktop from a Windows machine at work.

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#3

Hi @theakson,

I’m not an expert on networking a system so would something like Samba suit your needs?, or are they not the same type of program?.

When you are bored, you can take a look here:

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/

#4

hi wolfman
sorry no samba is not the same thing as nomachines or x2go. It’s a file and print system for integration of windoze and linux environments whereas the others are remote desktop clients. My intention is to have an number of old pc’s running headless linux and control them all from my desktop machine which is also going to be running linux ( ubuntu mate to be precise). The issue is, right now, that windoz desktop is not playing well with Mate compiz. So I am looking for a more acceptable remote desktop environment. Nomachinesnx seems to be a good choice and I was asking if anyone had opinions on it or any other remote desktop. Thanks anyway.

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#5

thanks quonsar I will certainly look into it

#6

Are you currently using xrdp for this? Compiz won’t play nice with a remote X screen because there is no graphics acceleration. Using marco instead will work a lot better since it’s CPU-driven. Trying swapping window compositors with your existing setup and see if this improves things.

#7

Hey Lah7
thanks for the heads up. I am trying compiz to try to resolve an ongoing screen tearing problem. Marco works well with windoze and yep I’m using xrdp.

#8

If I’m understanding this correctly, you’re connecting to headless computers that are running Compiz (despite no screen attached)?

If so, the tearing would be coming from the computer you’re connecting from, not the remote computer. Naturally, it won’t be a smooth display unless it was the fastest LAN/Internet connection in the world :wink: The least amount of effects, animations, shadows on the remote machine, the less data needed to update the display.

I could be misunderstanding… :confused:

#9

I didn’t really explain my environment properly hence the confusion. I have 6 computers on my home net. The one I use the most, right now, is a windoze 7 machine which I use to remote desktop into the other 5 computers running ubuntu. ONE of the ubuntu mate computers runs a great media center app called Kodi. The media pc is connected to a TV set using hdmi. when I sit down at it and run kodi my streaming movies have screen tearing hence my use of compiz ( gpu better) to try to resolve it ( please don’t bother with that). NOW if I use marco all is well on the windoze machine. I hope this clears things up. Please remember all I was asking was does anyone have an opinion on nomachinesNX not trying to solve any problems.

thanks for the interest though

#10

Hi all

Me again the noob. SO I must be misunderstanding how remote desktops work and I was wondering if someone could put me straight because I must have lost the plot.

Here is my layout.
1 completely wired all wireless turned off.
2 single router with 6 computers on it running linux ( mostly 15.10 mate ubuntu) AND one win 7 professional (one APP can’t run under wine)

3 I have a single user on all of them called Molly with admin privileges.

So if I want to run the environment headless what is the best approach? I don’t care about external access from outside the building I just want to be able to treat each machine as if it were on my central desktop,

#11

If your connections are reliable and unlikely to randomly drop. xrdp should be sufficient. This works by creating a new X server in the background and connects internally via VNC, similar to Remote Desktop on Windows, except multiple users could be using the computer at the same time.

I’ve found that permissions can be messy - as in, unable to mount external drives or accessing some privileged programs unless I had logged in physically once.

You may wish to look at purely VNC, which views and controls over the desktop just like you was sat in front of them.

These posts explain how to set this up:

#12

Hi Luke
happy new year and thanks I was looking at VNC but for some reason I thought it started a new session to the remote machine so you couldn’t see the actual desktop ( as if you were sitting at it.) I will probably look into it more now I see it works with the PI ( I have several lying around acting as Kodi servers)

thanks again for the heads up.

theakson