[X2go-dev] Looking for information on the future of x2go (and some other x2go-related stuff)

Stefan Baur newsgroups.mail2 at stefanbaur.de
Wed Mar 2 13:55:03 CET 2011


Hi list,

I have been "playing" with x2go for a while and it looks very promising 
- a worthy successor to Nomachine NX - though I am unsure about a few 
things - maybe someone here on this list could provide some information?

My questions are:

1) With the recent announcement of Nomachine going closed source, what 
does the future of x2go look like?
1a) As far as I understand, x2go uses parts of the GPL'ed Nomachine 
code, which will remain available in its current state due to the GPL, 
but will not be maintained by Nomachine any more. Are the x2go 
developers willing - and able - to maintain this part of the code, in 
case it requires maintenance and / or security patches?
1b) Or are you going to do a re-write of the Nomachine code currently in 
use?
1c) FreeNX seems to be a dying project (correct me if I'm wrong), since 
their lead developer Fabian Franz has left the project (or at least 
became inactive) quite a while ago - There are no Debian packages 
available any more, the latest Ubuntu packages are, umm, "flaky", and 
there hasn't been a new upstream release from the FreeNX team in a few 
years, unless I'm totally mistaken.
 From what I found out about x2go, the guy in the lead is Heinz-M. 
Graesing, who is working full-time as a system administrator and 
maintaining x2go purely in his spare time (again, correct me if I'm 
wrong). I would hate to see x2go going the FreeNX route once something 
happens to Heinz that leaves him unable to maintain the project. So I 
was wondering if there is a sufficient amount of other people backing 
the project that the loss of the lead developer (be it due to increased 
workload at his day job, health issues, or simply loss of interest) can 
be dealt with, should the situation arise? If that isn't the case right 
now, I would like to suggest making plans for it asap - the best time to 
install a fire escape ladder is before the house has a chance to start 
burning. ;-)

2) I read that Univention is using x2go for their desktop virtualization 
(see 
<http://wiki.univention.de/index.php?title=UCS_Desktop_Virtualization_Services>). 
Are they active supporters of x2go (i.e. donating money or manpower to 
the project)?
(I ask because I'm hoping that a company planning a large-scale 
commerial deployment like Univention seems to be doing would have an 
interest in the x2go project staying alive and expanding.)

3) I heard of legal issues regarding the project name and some other 
stuff. That was back in December. Since the project is still named x2go, 
and Univention is openly using this name, I was wondering if these 
issues have been resolved?

4) Browsing the list archive, I saw that you are planning to provide 
packages for sid and wheezy via the official Debian repositories - I 
understand that it is too late to add packages for squeeze to the 
official Debian repositories, now that squeeze has been released, but 
will you provide packages for squeeze via your own repository? Currently 
it only shows packages for lenny (regarding Debian; I'm aware that you 
are providing packages for other Debian-based Distros as well).

5) I understand that you need some sort of full-screen application 
(similar to xdm/kdm/gdm) when running in thin client mode, and that this 
is why the current x2go client looks the way it looks, but I would 
really like to see a client that doesn't take up as much screen space, 
especially on Windows.
Would it be possible to add an option for a "smaller" login window, 
similar to the one used by the current NX client:
Provide text entry fields for username and password, and a drop-down 
list for the session name; when a session name is given on the command 
line, only show username and password fields; when the session file was 
stored with a password, directly start the login process?

(The reason why I'm asking for this is that I see a use case where x2go 
is used in rootless mode to allow access to single applications, and the 
big fullscreen thingie is kind of annoying to the users that are 
currently used to the NX client.)

Regarding question 5, I cannot provide patches myself, as I am not a 
coder, but I would be willing to make a financial contribution either to 
the x2go project, if it is possible for them to accept such 
contributions, or to the coder providing the necessary patches (as long 
as the price quote seems reasonable and affordable to me) - if that 
helps motivate you to code. ;-)

6) Is there any way to get sound working (especially in rootless mode, 
say, for Flash-based websites displayed in a remote Firefox/Iceweasel 
window) with Debian lenny or squeeze on the server side, and Windows on 
the client side? I've seen a few messages concerning sound issues in the 
list archives, but I'm not sure if I made a mistake during my test 
installation or if there is a general problem and I can stop banging my 
head against the wall until the developers declare that the issue is fixed.

Kind Regards,
Stefan Baur

PS: I really like the idea of how you deal with printing, as opposed to 
the Nomachine approach - I had planned to implement something similar 
before, when I hadn't heard of x2go and was stuck with Nomachine, but 
failed due to my lack of coding skills and time.
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