VNC server based on kdrive using damage extension?

[Mark McLoughlin]

Hi,

On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 23:02, Mike MacCana wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 14:17 -0500, Bruce Bauman wrote:
> > We would like to build a lightweight X server which will operate
> > "headless". The only display device will be a remote VNC device. 
> 
> Why use VNC for this? The X protocol is already capable of proving en
> entire remote desktop on a distant PC. 

	I'll ignore the positive bandwidth/rate-limiting points of VNC which
other people have highlighted.

	It sounds very much like Bruce is hoping to use a very light embedded
client. Using the RFB protocol instead of the X protocol seems a good
choice because:

  a) With RFB, the client doesn't have to maintain any state. Clients 
     can come and go without any problems - if a client disconnects and
     then reconnects it only needs initialize the connection and receive
     the full frame buffer contents from the server.

  b) RFB is an incredibly simple and lightweight protocol to implement.


	Also, the RFB protocol is very similar to the protocol that underlies
Sun's "Sun Ray" architecture which has been pretty successful.
Here's a paper describing the rationale behind choosing such an
architecture:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=319154&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=16221710&CFTOKEN=7564094

Cheers,
Mark.