Making X11 work "better" over network

[Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost>]

Thought of making a fresh survey of what sort of X11 compression tools are
available that would make running an X client over a remote server with
your local host being X server.

xorg's own documentation [1] summarizes most options that I came across.
Hence not including every project's individual links, they are all
accessible from [1].

While ssh with compression is good for LAN, it's not so good for usage
over internet. Just compressing traffic isn't enough, reduction in traffic
is more important, which other tools try and achieve.

I recollect having toyed with lbx or dxpc long back, but looks like both
these aren't actively maintained. But if there is anyone using these
effectively please do share your experiences.

Looks like dxpc evolved into NX and seems is commercial now.

Further x2go seems based on NX3 protocol.

xcb, while reportedly faster, requires modification to the application.
Hence may not be an option if one wants a general purpose solution.

xpra aka "screen for x11" looks interesting.


Request to share your experiences over these or any other options. It will
be good to take up a wip project for some of these more active projects.
Hope this thread will help shortlist and channelize our effort.

[1] https://www.x.org/wiki/Development/Documentation/Performance/

Mayuresh