Hello. I've had my N800 for about a month, and despite intensive reading of this forum and various blogs I still consider myself a newbie...

Of all the things I would wish of this device (e.g. full google calendar compatibility through the browser, skype, etc) there is one that I think is the "mother of all programs" for an internet tablet:

remote connection to a desktop, i.e. using the tablet "just" as a screen and getting the desktop to do all the hard work.

I've followed suggestions (posts from 2005, that's a while back !) on using xterm and openssh, and sure enough I can do ssh -X to a linux machine and I can open graphics programs on the remote machine, and it's very promising (and potentially beautiful !).... except that I can't find a way to input text on the remote machine. This was a problem identified way back in 2005.... how can it still be a problem now? Is it really still a problem, or is it just me ? Would a Bluetooth keyboard help, the info on this is sketchy ?

A more minor issue is that the display coming from the remote desktop can't be made full-screen.

I was just wondering if there are people out there also interested in this, and if anybody is making better progress than me. Needless to say, if this worked well it would increase the number of things that can be done by a lot, and make the tablet much more useful for professionals.

Thanks for any comments or help.

Hi,
I agree, this would be one of the more appealing aspects of these gadgets. I've been able to forward firefox and amarok (forwarded sound too) from my home machine to the 770. I haven't tried on the n800 yet though. I was able to use the stowaway keyboard with these programs no problem (didn't test extensively). As for fullscreen, if there is a menu option to view in fullscreen forthe app, it will become fullscreen on the 770 or n800. This works quite well with firefox. Firefox in general works very good forwarded....except flash video can't keep up (maybe the n800 is better?). It would be nice to have a launcher that would connect and start an app without having to do it through a terminal....maybe someday.

There are Remote Desktop (RDP/Terminal Services) and VNC clients for the n800.

I have tried VNC, but I would be more interested in only having one app forwarded instead of the whole desktop. VNC seemed slow compared to an x-forwarded application...perhaps the non-free version works better? Also, the fact that ssh doesn't take over the desktop is very appealing. I have created a different user that i log into via ssh (and can run, for example, amarok) and still have use of my computer (as a different user). TO me ssh x-forwarding is a more elegant solution to the problem and has benefits (in my mind) to VNC. I haven't tried RDP so I would be curious to know of it's advantages vs VNC.

while this topic is up, Has anyone managed to get the VNC client to enter a password for the OS X screensaver?

I think you are asking how to input text into a VNC forwarded desktop? The only way that I know of is to use a bluetooth keyboard.

Yes, one of my questions was about ways to get text input for a remote connection, and in particular once you have graphics applications open within ssh -X.

From experience with cygwin, and for the programs I use, x11 forwarding is in many ways more flexible than vnc, and also a more elegant use of the hardware.

The pointer works very well, so I was curious about the possibility of some code that would "bring up" a virtual keyboard "on demand" by pressing some hard key, thereby enabling text input. I'm not a programmer, so maybe this thing that looks simple actually hides a lot of complexity ?

thanks for all the info so far, I'll try the Bluetooth keyboard.

Somewhat off topic, but I did try this

I used Nvidia's Rotate to rotate the screen 90% left (or right) and then using VNC connected to the system. That let me use the N800 in a portrait format which a standard layout virtual keyboard could still fit nicely. Then adjust whatever app to take up the screen estate behind it.

This is mainly for apps that fit particularly well in that space's width (portrait). Just an idea in case any of you may need it that way.


Luke

When there is a lot of X11 traffic a VNC connection is way faster than an ssh-forwarded X11 connection. This is because X11 uses an inefficient transfer protocol. A VNC will transfer only changes, while forwarded X11 will transfer everything. The difference is dramatic if there is some line latency involved too.
Note that I haven't tried an N800 VNC client yet, but if it isn't at least as fast as (and getting faster with higher latency or more X11 traffic) ssh -X then that would be a problem with the particular VNC implementation.

im on a 770, but I"m having some issues with vnc as well. I can view my windows pc or whatever on the 770 through vnc viewer, but i would like to be able to use vncviewer on my pc to see whats on the 770 and control things there. I installed x11vnc but I can't seem to figure out how to get my vncviewer to actually connect. I type in the ip address of my 770 while x11vnc is running, but it just times out.