Like I said, they're both on the same 100 Mbps LAN (actually 1 Gbps LAN, but the old machine only has a 10/100 NIC). I would be willing to try both, but I guess I was curious if a) there were other suggestions, or b) there was any sage advice about doing things securely (e.g., using SSH port forwarding).
On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Rob Sherwood <[email protected]>wrote: > How remote is the remote machine? LAN? WAN? It's not too hard just > to try both and see what works best. X should work out of the box for > you but I suspect your will like VNC better. What I would be > interested in hearing is if there are any other alternatives? > > - Rob > . > > > > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 8:27 AM, Nick Cummings<[email protected]> wrote: > > I have a slow old machine (Celeron 400 MHz) that I'd like to use as a > client > > to do work on a faster remote machine. What I want is almost a thin > client, > > meaning that most of the time I'd like as much as possible running on the > > faster server, but the client will have a hard drive, and ideally I'd > like > > to retain the ability to login to the local system occasionally. Also, I > > don't have a special NIC I can boot from in the client. > > > > What are my best options? > > > > Currently, the server is running Ubuntu Hardy (8.04 LTS) and the client > is > > running Xubuntu Jaunty (9.04). The two machines are on the same 100 Mbps > > LAN. Both have public (i.e., routable) IP addresses and are not behind a > > firewall, so I don't want to open anything terribly insecure. > > > > I'm familiar with X Forwarding, which would allow me to connect via SSH > and > > have individual applications on the remote machine forwarded to the local > > machine's X server. But since I'd be working essentially entirely on the > > remote machine, it would be preferable to be using an entirely remote > > desktop. Also, the more computational work that can be off-loaded onto > the > > remote machine the better. > > > > Should I look into some sort of VNC software or XDMCP? Which of these is > > relatively secure (or can be easily made secure with the use of SSH > > tunnels)? I would also like something that doesn't require me to already > be > > logged in on the remote machine. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Nick > > >
