[X2go-user] Performance issues using RDP

[John A. Sullivan III]

On Sat, 2011-05-28 at 11:52 -0400, brian mullan wrote:
> 
> John
> 
> I've done this quite a bit and have not seen this problem
> 
> x2go client on ubuntu --(a)--- AWS EC2 Ubuntu desktop ---(b)--- AWS
> EC2 Windows 2003 serverl
>       * link (a) is 15 Mbs cable connection
>       * link (b) is 10Gbps ethernet
> A few thoughts I'd have are:
>       * is only RDP affected?  
>               * From x2go client can you log into the x2go server and
>                 do an extended PING (say 20 iterations or so) to the
>                 Windows Server to see if PING's response time is
>                 changing?
>       * are you sure there are no network issues on the link btwn the
>         x2go server to the windows server?  as it sounds like the VPN
>         test went directly to the Windows server leaving out the link
>         between the x2go server and Windows Server
>       * Are you able to log directly into the x2go server ...not using
>         x2go ... and run rdesktop directly to the window server just
>         to see if RDP is having a problem over that link?
> Brian

Thanks, Brian.  The WAN connections we are testing on are intentionally
considerably slower than 15 Mbps.  Only RDP is affected.  The
performance of all other X2Go applications is splendid.  In fact, I did
the same kind of line painting test using KWrite instead of notepad and
it flew - same system, same time.  The X2Go Server and Windows servers
are on the same switch and all seems fine.  Indeed, the VPN test
bypasses the X2Go connection and runs much better.

We are going to have a look at SPICE and see what that does for us.
SPICE has come up a couple of times on this list and I've mentioned the
last time I looked at it, it was a great LAN protocol but a terrible WAN
protocol.

I've just taken a couple of hours to reacquaint myself with it and it
has come a long way.  It now does caching to reduce latency and
bandwidth.  It uses compression and not only does it use compression but
it uses adaptive compression as I thought only HP was doing.  In other
words, it uses lossless compression for text and most screen updates
but, if it detects massive, rapid changes, it will assume it is
streaming video and shift to a lossy compression.  It then does
"lipsync" between the audio and video stream.

That means video has a fighting chance at last.  This is the alternative
approach to the Citrix method of copying the video and then playing it
locally (as Mike has duplicated with Mimebox - an excellent idea with
much potential).

As we consider what to do with the ongoing saga of NX, we may want to
consider SPICE after all.  I'll let the list know how our testing goes
if anyone is interested - John
> 
>  
>         ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>         From: "John A. Sullivan III" <jsullivan at opensourcedevel.com>
>         To: x2go-user at lists.berlios.de
>         Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 15:49:50 -0400
>         Subject: [X2go-user] Performance issues using RDP
>         Hello, all.  We were very eager to experiment with TSPlus
>         (http://www.tsplus.net) as an alternative to Microsoft RDS.
>          We have
>         been assuming all along that performance of any RDP solution
>         is better
>         in a low bandwidth WAN environment if we put X2Go in the
>         middle of it
>         and run rdesktop from the X2Go Server to a local Windows
>         server.  Our
>         results were very disappointing with both TSPlus and RDS and
>         with both
>         rdesktop and xfreerdp.
>         
>         Has anyone else experienced the same poor performance or, more
>         importantly, has anyone worked around it?
>         
>         We noticed that screens seemed to be painting line by line -
>         not sure if
>         if it is the entire screen or just the active window.  It also
>         made
>         mouse movements very erratic in TSPlus + rdesktop.  TSPlus +
>         xfreerdp
>         seems better.
>         
>         To demonstrate this, I opened notepad in a large window in a
>         full screen
>         session, typed an entire line, copied it to the clipboard and
>         then held
>         down <CTL>V to paste it.  The first few lines flew but then it
>         became
>         very slow and we could see the flicker of each line painting.
>         
>         I also opened Internet Explorer and went to
>         www.spiritualoutreach.org -
>         a very poorly designed site I put up years ago with long pages
>         and far
>         too large graphics.  I sat and watched the screen paint a band
>         at a
>         time.  I opened one of the large template documents and
>         vertical
>         scrolling was nearly impossible.
>         
>         I'll paste in some of our internal notes below.  Thanks - John
>         
>         
>         
> 
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