How difficult would it be to make the equivalent of Windows Terminal Server with Wine?

[Simon.Tyler at ddscanada.com]

Hi Boaz,

Not sure if this is relevant/useful, but I have been playing with using
Wine to deliver apps to Mac users over the LAN. Using scripts, I start X11
on the Mac, copy the X cookie into the terminal variable on the Mac side,
telnet to the Linux server, start the Wine app, and send the display back
to the Mac. Probably you have discarded this option for security reasons,
however we find this runs much faster using pure X11 over the LAN than
tunnelling X11 over SSH; there's less work on both ends. As long as
security is not a concern, and it's LAN only it's a nice solution.
Passwords are simply disabled on the Linux box; the users can't tell the
difference between a locally installed app, and one running on the Linux
box. In fact, on slow Macs, the linux server executes and displays faster
than a local app ever could.

Each Mac user has their own Linux account. I setup one Linux account the
way I need and then copy it for how ever many Mac users there will be. It
looks to me as if hardware requirements are better than Citrix, even though
each user has their own instance of Wine.

Have experimented with varying results over WAN with combinations of SSH,
lbx proxy etc. When I get a chance I'll look at FreeN/X; it sounds
promising.

By the way, this solution works for Windows/Mac/Linux equally well, of
course you need an X server installed.

Simon Tyler


                                                                           
             Boaz Harrosh                                                  
             <boaz at hishome.net                                             
             >                                                          To 
             Sent by:                  Hans Leidekker <hans at it.vu.nl>      
             wine-devel-admin@                                          cc 
             winehq.org                wine-devel at winehq.org, Jakob        
                                       Eriksson <jakov at vmlinux.org>,       
                                       Andrew Quigley                      
             11/01/2004 10:27          <andrew.quigley at multitek.com>       
             AM                                                    Subject 
                                       Re: How difficult would it be to    
                                       make the equivalent of Windows      
                                       Terminal Server with Wine?          
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




Hans Leidekker wrote:

>I really like the concept but your approach seems to limit publishing of
apps
>to Windows boxes. Theoretically you could run the OCX (Internet Explorer)
on
>Wine and the Cygwin/X as well but not practically though, if only from a
>performance point of view.
>
>It would be more interesting if Mac/Linux/Unix users could use their
browser
>of choice and their native X server, which is usually already installed on
>those platforms. How exactly is this approach dependent on the use of an
OCX?
>
> -Hans
>
>

Very good question!
Once I de-wrinkle all details with my boss, I want to publish the source
for the OCX. The first "todo" it will have is the:
How to port to other platforms/browsers.?

On the Server html page I have the <object> tag with the
CODEBASE="path2cab/xwidget.CAB" attribute
(xwidget is what I called the OCX)

I have read that there is a way to have platform/browser specific
installation packages. But than how to do it with each platform?
I don't know? any Mozilla guru out there that can help. On Linux all you
need is a client side access to the shell. And also on Mac OSX.

Actually all it is on windows is a shell access with an invocation of
ssh -X, And the regular IE's safe-for-scripting stuff.
(ssh is installed along side with the cygwin/X server)

It is all very Client un-safe and should probably be confined to the
IntraNet only. Server safety can be kept.
Maybe the best would be to embed the ssh inside the Object and not let
the server have a shell access on the client. I'll see how it goes and
if client safety is requested at all.

Free Life
Boaz