[Discuss] FreeNx

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2007-11-20 16:42-0800 John Blomfield wrote:

> I am still trying to decide how best to proceed with my three boxs, that is, 
> X-xdm, freeNx or some other but I have a question about the X-xdm route.  If 
> once you've setup your X headless server and the network connection to the 
> thin (or fat ) client is broken can you still plug a keyboard, mouse and 
> monitor into the server and get it to work, now that you've modified the 
> display manager??
>

I am virtually positive that FreeNX is simply a network speed booster for X
so your choices are not x-xdm versus FreeNX.  Instead, they are X-xdm with
or without FreeNX.  Also, the X server _only_ runs on a computer that is
headed so "X headless server" above is a misnomer.

I think the gist of your question is whether you can switch easily from
headless to headed on one of your computers.  The answer is yes.

Attach monitor/keyboard/mouse to your computer which will normally be
headless. Install an independent Linux distro on that computer (you have
probably already done so) which entails configuring the X server so you can
start it locally using startx.  (By default xdm handles both non-local and
local connections, and you could leave it like that, but I change the one
line in the xdm configuration so it only manages non-local displays which
allows you to start the local X server with the startx command.) After that
you normally would use that computer headless, but if you ever wanted to go
back to headed (say in an emergency caused by a broken network), then
connect monitor/keyboard/mouse again, and simply type "startx" to fire up
the X server on your newly headed computer.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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