[Beowulf] OT, X11 editor which works well for very remote systems?

[Lux, Jim (337K)]

From: Beowulf <beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org> on behalf of Tim Cutts <tjrc at sanger.ac.uk>
Date: Thursday, June 7, 2018 at 8:03 AM
To: James Cuff <jcuff at nextplatform.com>
Cc: "beowulf at beowulf.org" <beowulf at beowulf.org>, mathog <mathog at caltech.edu>
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] OT, X11 editor which works well for very remote systems?


I think X11 was a fairly good idea, in theory, for how to deal with this problem.  The implementation may have left something to be desired, I suppose.

In practice I virtually never use X11 any more.  I use probably two X11 applications, both of them once in a blue moon.  One of them is a local legacy program about to be replaced by a web app, and the other is gitk.

I long since stopped using graphical editors on Linux.  I’ve toyed with them on MacOS since.


But how do you edit powerpoint slides remotely?

Realistically, remote CAD tools are an excellent example of where you want to send high res graphics remotely. You have your drawing database hosted “elsewhere” and you need to do things like view solid models and such, without sending 100s of MB of files around. It’s about interactive latency more than total bits sent during a session.  If I render the image on the server, and I only have to send the images to my remote unit that’s probably something that can be done “fast” over a skinnier pipe (e.g. a cellular modem).

Think of doing work on an airplane through the somewhat lame internet connectivity available. There have been several times in the last couple years where it was better for me to remote console to a desktop machine and run Matlab there, than to try and move the 30GB data file to my laptop and run Matlab locally.  Yeah, the remote desktop has its issues, but it’s minor compared to trying to move a big dataset in competition with the people streaming video in the seats around me.  That said, “interactive 3D scrolling” is terrible in that environment. But I think that’s a flaw in the remote desktop implementation.

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