| From: Anthony de Boer via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | Back in the day it used to be customary to run X applications on the big | grunty server in the machine room, talking over the network to a | relatively underpowered desktop X Terminal that knew little more than how | to paint stuff on the screen, and that's still a possible fallback today, | with the big PC using the RPi as a terminal. It seems that network transparent graphics is no longer a thing. Scott Sullivan has explained this in our last meeting. Here's what I absorbed (Scott may consider this a distortion). - performance is crap because the X protocol doesn't express things in a way that engages the capabilities of modern GPUs - security was poor. (Surely that could have been fixed.) - network bandwidth just doesn't match CPU to GPU bandwidth - latencies annoy folks. TCP/IP Networking makes no latency guarantees - the demand for network transparent desktops is very low among the folks that actually develop the software On the other hand, I like network transparent graphics. I used it a lot. I laughed at Windows for not having it. I laughed at the hackiness of VNC as a solution. Well, the last laugh is on me. Evan said that the idea that the thing on your desk was a server was confusing and stupid and that it was good that it is gone. I don't agree. After all, the internet is a network of peers (except for those behind NAT). The thing on your desk can run a server (process or service) -- mine runs a lot.