remote mol-sessions with X-windows or vnc.

[Andy Baxter]

hello,

Can anyone help me with some information about using Mac-on-linux to  
run remote displays on a number of machines over a network?

Our local linux users group has been helping set up a small network in  
the back room of a local art gallery/ new media centre. At the moment  
there's a fast (pentium III I think) server machine, and half a dozen  
old pentiums running as X terminals.

Although everything is working technically, it looks to me that the  
machines aren't being used much - when I go in, they're usually  
switched off, and only the iMacs they have in the front room for  
internet access are on. The original idea of setting up this network, I  
think, was to provide a cheap resource for local people who want to  
work on creative computer projects in a shared space - i.e. not just by  
yourself at home. I think this is a good idea, but I'm wondering if  
part of the reason these machines aren't being used is that some of the  
people who might want to use it are used to macs and don't want to  
learn a new system.

I've been thinking that a solution to this would be to persuade the  
gallery to buy a second hand powermac PPC off ebay, and then set this  
up using mac-on-linux so all the x-terminals can run a session from  
this as well, with people choosing which OS they want to run when they  
log in.

But I don't know if this is feasible technically - I had a quick look  
at the user guide sections on x-windows and vnc, and it sounds like  
there might be problems.

Like it says there that the x-windows display in mol needs a 100Mbit  
connection to run remotely because it just streams the whole display  
across the network with no compression. Is this so, and is there any  
way of working round this? (The intel server and hub is 100Mbit, but  
most of the x-terminals only have 10 Mbit cards)
Would vnc be a better solution here?
Is there any way the intel server machine could take some of the load  
off the ppc/mol-machine or off the main network ? (it has a spare  
100Mbit ethernet card which could be connected direct to the ppc  
machine)

Also, they have a spare iMac which doesn't get much use at the moment -  
would this be fast enough to test this system before they went ahead  
and bought a faster server machine?

andy baxter.