[gentoo-user] [OT] Screen sharing software or similar
Hi all! I'm looking for a solution to the following problem. My relatives live 200 km away. They have a daughter, and I need to help her out with school homework etc. At the moment we cannot do it on a regular basis, because doing it over the phone is really difficult and time consuming. I thought some screen sharing software would solve this. A video conferencing or a VoIP feature would be a nice bonus, too. For easy writing I would probably buy graphics tablets since writing math formulas or drawing isn't particularly fast or easy with keyboard and mouse. So, is there some easy-to-use Linux program? I have Linux desktops on both ends (Ubuntu and Gentoo), so portability or OS-independence is not a requirement. Do you have any other ideas? For the record, we have a 2 Mbit DSL line on one end and a 6 Mbit on the other. Those are, of course, downstream bandwidth rates. Best wishes, Renat -- Probleme kann man niemals mit derselben Denkweise loesen, durch die sie entstanden sind. (Einstein) signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Screen sharing software or similar
On Thursday 18 February 2010 15:15:52 Renat Golubchyk wrote: Hi all! I'm looking for a solution to the following problem. My relatives live 200 km away. They have a daughter, and I need to help her out with school homework etc. At the moment we cannot do it on a regular basis, because doing it over the phone is really difficult and time consuming. I thought some screen sharing software would solve this. A video conferencing or a VoIP feature would be a nice bonus, too. For easy writing I would probably buy graphics tablets since writing math formulas or drawing isn't particularly fast or easy with keyboard and mouse. So, is there some easy-to-use Linux program? I have Linux desktops on both ends (Ubuntu and Gentoo), so portability or OS-independence is not a requirement. Do you have any other ideas? For the record, we have a 2 Mbit DSL line on one end and a 6 Mbit on the other. Those are, of course, downstream bandwidth rates. Best wishes, Renat remote desktop would be ideal except you can't usually share desktops with it. Investigate tightvnc - the data stream can be compressed and it's very efficient. You could use skype for the human-to-human communication. There are of course tons of alternatives but I imagine a girl at school is already very familiar with skype. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Screen sharing software or similar
On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 02:15:52PM +0100, Renat Golubchyk wrote: My relatives live 200 km away. They have a daughter, and I need to help her out with school homework etc. At the moment we cannot do it on a regular basis, because doing it over the phone is really difficult and time consuming. I thought some screen sharing software would solve this. A video conferencing or a VoIP feature would be a nice bonus, too. For easy writing I would probably buy graphics tablets since writing math formulas or drawing isn't particularly fast or easy with keyboard and mouse. So, is there some easy-to-use Linux program? I have Linux desktops on both ends (Ubuntu and Gentoo), so portability or OS-independence is not a requirement. Skype + gimp/inkscape ? Use your tablet to draw in any image editing program. Save to file. Skype has the ability to send file on demand. It will be slightly slower, but still faster than just talking. I know Skype has a lot of Whiteboard plugins, but they look like they only work for Windows clients. (Back in the 90s my father and I used to use this internet voice chat software called Aloha that has whiteboards built-in.) Or maybe Coccinella? http://packages.gentoo.org/package/net-im/coccinella Its package description says Jabber Client with Built-in Whiteboard and VoIP. I've never used it myself. You can probably grok through the net-im category yourself to find others. Cheers, W -- Willie W. Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire et vice versa ~~~ I. Newton
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Screen sharing software or similar
Renat Golubchyk writes: My relatives live 200 km away. They have a daughter, and I need to help her out with school homework etc. At the moment we cannot do it on a regular basis, because doing it over the phone is really difficult and time consuming. I thought some screen sharing software would solve this. A video conferencing or a VoIP feature would be a nice bonus, too. For easy writing I would probably buy graphics tablets since writing math formulas or drawing isn't particularly fast or easy with keyboard and mouse. So, is there some easy-to-use Linux program? I have Linux desktops on both ends (Ubuntu and Gentoo), so portability or OS-independence is not a requirement. Do you have any other ideas? For the record, we have a 2 Mbit DSL line on one end and a 6 Mbit on the other. Those are, of course, downstream bandwidth rates. You could use Skype to replace your phone communication, if you don't mind its spookiness (I do). It also does video conferencing. If plain audio is enough, I'd use TeamSpeak. Some jabber client for text conversations would be fine. Also works for formulas, if you know some LaTeX... And then VNC (epecially TightVNC) to share your drawings on the tablet. For ultimate performance, you could install NX, which makes X forwarding amazingly fast. One party connects to the remote NX server and opens a KDE 3.5 session, which will work nearly as fast if it were opened locally. And the other connects via VNC to that KDE session, which is also very fast then because it runs locally, not over DSL. I do not know if other window managers than KDE 3.5 have the VNC sharing feature, I have not found it in KDE4. You might need some port forwarding if you both are NATed behind a router. Wonko
Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Screen sharing software or similar
On Thu, 2010-02-18 at 14:15 +0100, Renat Golubchyk wrote: Hi all! I'm looking for a solution to the following problem. A lot of people have answered already, but you may be interested to know the current linux release of skype 2.1.0.81 lets you share part or all of your desktop. It's view only, and it replaces the webcam stream with your desktop - pretty neat. For 2-way desktop interaction we often use vnc. Use a vnc server and client capable of the tight extensions, and don't forget to use them: vncviewer -encodings tight host or vncviewer -via somehost -encodings tight localhost would ssh via somehost. Use localhost if you can ssh directly to the box, or the actual hostname accessible via 'somehost' if you have to go via a gateway. I use net-misc/tightvnc. If you can ssh to the box, you can vnc to it. You could run skype as well just for the audio. HTH, -- Iain Buchanan iaindb at netspace dot net dot au While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove. -- Edward Stevenson
