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Fabian Franz - Knoppix Team

(Free)NX - Remote Desktop Access - Present and Future

(Free)NX is still gaining monumentum in the sector of low-bandwidth, high-latency remote desktop access using just free and open source software!

What NX is

NX basically is an extension of the powerful X protocol and boosts the performance of X11, RDP and VNC connections. All traffic can be encrypted and such securely transferred over the internet.

The core NX technology, developed by the friendly folks at NoMachine.com, is completely Free Software under the GPL license. NX/FreeNX allows you to run remoteX11 connections also over slow links like 56k modems or ISDN (even very slow ones such as GSM modems). But NX sessions are still fast and responsive.

NX achieves this goal by using:

• a very efficient X-protocol and bitmap compression;
• an intelligent caching of transferred data for later re-use;
• a sophisticated round-trip suppression scheme.

Moreover, NX can not only provide access to X11/Linux+Unix, but also to RDP/Windows and VNC/any-OS "application server" workstations. NX also allows you to suspend any X11-, RDP- or VNC-session and later reconnect to it, even from a different client workstation.

The talk will demonstrate several live connections with free and commercial clients. We will connect to commercial and free NX servers in Germany, Italy and Canada. We will show sessions to Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and Solaris desktops.

What is the present situation

The talk will show the present situation of FreeNX and its sister projects NX4Uand moznx. While FreeNX is a complete server framework compatible with the commercial products of NoMachine.com, NX4U is a product for hackers. The talk will give an overview of implemented and still missing features in the FreeNX server. NX4U on the other hand is for those that just need faster X11 connections and that can be installed by just unpacking a tarball.

Where to get help / Documentation effort

It will also show briefly how to use NX from a Knoppix CD, how to install it ona system and where to get documentation that works.

What is planned for the future

Then it'll give a demonstration of all new features and those that are in the making, including using nxfish for filesharing, transparent printing through cups, load balancing, using the NXWebCompanion and some more that won't be revealed here.

The talk will also give an overview and perhaps a small demo of the features ofthe upcoming NX 2.0.0.