Discuss Digest, Vol 37, Issue 7

[Richard Pieri]

On Nov 7, 2010, at 8:02 PM, Mark Woodward wrote:
> 
> Exactly my point. Once these applications are "ported" or recompiled to 
> the non-X system, they lose an amazing key operational advantage.

What, a cumbersome windowing system on top of an archaic display system?

No, seriously, I just don't see remote X display as being that big a deal.  It's useful, yes, but it's also *slow*.  Very slow, particularly for complex GTK and Qt applications.  A remote desktop system like VNC or NoMachine is generally superior for remote display.

> I have used gimp, openoffice, firefox, and thunderbird, amongst many 
> others "remotely" over X.

So have I.  Firefox isn't too bad, but neither is it too good.  OpenOffice is a pig.

> Can you show the GUI of iTunes or Safari remotely on another Mac? 
> (without the whole desktop?) I can show Firefox and "Rhythmbox" on 
> remotely. Its one of the reasons I find Mac unusable.

No... but then again, why would I want to?  NextStep had this and it was both a massive security problem and unusably slow over anything other than short haul networks.  The Mac 10.0 (10.1?) beta dumped it for those reasons.  And besides, OS X has had a fast VNC server built right into it for the last two (three?  I forget if Tiger had it) major versions.

> Like I said, how about the native Mac applications? Once there is a 
> "compatibility layer" there is a two tier system of haves and have nots. 
> Some applications will work remotely and some will not. Who to say which 
> ones will or won't? It fractures the compatibility in Linux.

Oh, no, the sky is falling!  Linux is terribly fractured in many ways.  That is both its strength and its weakness.  Adding another isn't going to change that.

--Rich P.