Comments on How To Set Up A Terminal Server In Linux Using Ubuntu 9.10 And FreeNX

Just wanted to say thanks - I needed a quick, straight-forward and easy to follow guide to do this and yours worked flawlessly.

Cheers!  :)

Ubuntu LTSP is a much more complete solution for setting up a terminal server on a LAN.  Client machines don't need an OS or even a hard drive because they boot directly from their ethernet hardware.  I use it so my whole family can use different clients at the same time, and I only need to administer one OS on one machine. 

 Using FreeNX requires the "client", host its own OS, and is better suited for connecting to your home/office machine from a remote location.

 Using FreeNX requires the "client", host its own OS. 

This is not true. If one sets up a TFTP server one can deliver an operating system to a diskless, operating system-less, thin client (zero client). I personally deliver the thinstation operating system including the nxclient. then one simply logs in to the freenx server. Between the main office and our branch offices, I set up OPENVPN, then access the freenx server via a "tun" tunnel. Works brilliantly !

I have succesfully tested Ubuntu 9.04 LTSP clients with NX / FreeNX environment with NX client installed in clients chroot and running by openbox session on client, but i am not using this solution, because i have LTSP setted to anonymous student's login (as guest login) and do not get guest login via NX to work yet.

But i am using NX client installed in client chroot as the locallapps to launch one application (kicad works very slow in LTSP). The kicad is launched by simple bash script. Only one problem, which i have, is X autentication, but this is probably my disconfiguration and i solved this by running "ltsp-locallapps xhost +..." for now - for this is mentioned script needed.

This solution has one disadvantage - by improper user's logout, the nxserver processes don't exits and sometime i need terminate these sessions manualy.

I have been looking for a tutoral on this but so far no luck...

 

Multimedia is still a tough issue for NX as with any remote desktop s/w. I had exchanged some information with one of the FreeNX developers recently regarding audio problems and received the following advice:

If you are using the client on a Ubuntu machine you will want to build
a custom nxesd.
And replace the one at /usr/NX/bin/nxesd.
Ubuntu don't work well with the one that comes with the nxclient nxesd.
I've noticed that when I was hacking on sound support a long time ago.
So I am not sure about the status right now.

But I think this is causing the choppy audio.

Yep, I really don't like this approach.

NX proxy port
       displaynumber + 4000
       5000 - 5200
X11 port
       displaynumber + 6000
       7000 - 7200
NX CUPS service port
       displaynumber + 2000
       3000 - 3200
NX SMB/CIFS share service port
       displaynumber + 3000
       4000 - 4200
NX Media service port
       displaynumber + 7000
       8000 - 8200
NX X11 auxiliary channel port
       displaynumber + 8000
       9000 - 9200

Marcelo also told me to make sure I added the following:

You will need something like this:
$ pactl load-module module-esound-sink sink_name=remote  ($ESPEAKER should be $DISPLAY+7000 --- check that its set using printenv | grep ESPEAKER)
or if not... set the env variable then execute the pactl cmd.
$ pactl load-module module-esound-sink sink_name=remote
server=localhost:$DISPLAY+7000
 

I think you need to update the links in this howto. Plus multimedia is no longer an issue with the latest version of nomachine (not Freenx, which seems to be outof date)