[X2Go-User] The future of x2gokdrive

[Stefan Baur]

Am 07.05.20 um 10:48 schrieb Mike Gabriel:
>>
>> Again, that sounds nice as an add-on, but basic NX support in an HTML5
>> client should take priority.  After all, that's what our sponsors asked
>> for - and not a broker-/multi-server DMZ solution.
>> It's fine to design the solution with a possible broker-add-on in mind,
>> but please don't focus on the broker more than on the NX support.
> 
> Why stick to the NX support, if we have a native graphical backend
> that's html5 compliant.

Again: Because classic X2Go HTML5 support is what the sponsor wants to
see.  KDrive, Broker, Sound, Printer- and Filesharing - nice bells and
whistles, but not what the sponsor wants.

NX is stable, NX is what they're used to, so they ask for it to be used.
We're way past the stage where we could negotiate "Can't we just use
KDrive instead of NX?".

I would also like to remind you that I don't consider KDrive
production-ready for general use yet.  It may work for Alex' customers,
but last time I tried, I still saw quite a few quirks due to the session
not recognizing that it is a remote session (showing popups that only
make sense for a local user, granting permissions that a remote user
should not have, etc.).

Those are blockers for a stable release and from my understanding, they
need to be fixed in the Desktop Environments, not on the X2Go/KDrive
side.  And such changes are unlikely to get introduced/back-ported to
already-existing long term releases of Linux distributions - which most
sponsors/commercial users of X2Go are using.

So I doubt we'll see KDrive support becoming generally available until
the next major releases of the most popular long-term distros.
And that's not how long a sponsor should have to wait for a sponsored
feature.  Plus it might have a negative impact on their willingness to
fund further work.

In a Pre-Corona world, I would have said I'd like to see results before
or at the next Gathering.  But if we get hit with another infection
wave, who knows when the next Gathering will be, so that's not really an
"anchor" for a time frame I would like to use right now. ;-)


> The NX -> x11vnc -> NoVNC solution will always be worse (slower, more
> itchy and glitchy).

Maybe you could grab the NX output while still on the host (like,
running a fake X2GoClient directly on the server), then push the output
towards the HTML5 client the same way Alex' KDrive-HTML5 solution does?
That could work as some kind of compatibility layer.  That way, the DE
would recognize a remote session (even though it's actually connected
through 127.0.0.1 or ::1), so we don't have to deal with the quirks/wait
for the fixes, yet you'd still only need one backend to talk to the
HTML5 client, not two.

-Stefan

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