Headless YellowDog

[Jim Bauer]

On Monday 11 October 2004 20:19, 
yellowdog-general at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com wrote:
> > I remember on Suns a long time ago that you could get cards
> > that had a video
> > and keyboard plug on them to do just what I was describing.
> > Tehn you coul
> > dhave two local people usin gthe box at once.
>
> The beginnings of extreme programming? All the dweebs huddled around their
> Sun, praying to its mighty CPU. That would be kind of cool, actually.

More like getting 2 computers for the price of one.  And considering the price 
of Suns back then, you might want to have more then two.

> > - The viewer talks directly with the virtual X server in the
> > stand alone case
>
> No. The client *never* connects to the remote X session because the client
> uses the VNC protocol to get its display information.   It *has* to go
> through mediation by some VNC component which has access to the X client
> information (and the X server information in the case of the X server
> module). That's the translator between X client/server conversations and
> VNC client/server network sessions.


The "virtual X server" that I said (this is the Unix case) is what the VNC 
viewer talks to (prog Xvnc).  But NOT via the X protocol, but using the VNC 
protocol.  i.e. TCP port 5900+x where x is the vncserver display number.


> I think I understand (with regards to how these answers came about). This
> was in the context of him trying to get his second session running.
>
> But on a given session, I can run five vncviewers if I want. I can control
> five different machines with five different viewers all running in one X
> session. Certainly, far off in network land, there must be five VNC servers
> somewhere for me to control. They do not all necessarily need to be X
> servers.
>
> vncviewer eenie &
> vncviewer meenie &
> vncviewer miney &
> vncviewer moe &
>
> and I'll get four viewers all running on my desktop asking me for
> passwords. Then they'll open and I can just minimize and switch around as I
> need them. We're just talking about running the client here, right?

Yep.  You can also do

vncviewer moe &
vncviewer -shared moe &

and have two views of the sameVNC server.

> I agree, for ease of use, that would be a cool way to use them, but for
> beginners, I think this is way to confusing.