Hi
I know that some Slackware people here use FreeNX, and of course Alien Bob put the slackbuild together. What I'd like to know is, is anyone using this combination in a production environment? I am interested in setting up a terminal server for a school, where a friend of mine teaches, using their old machines as thin clients and getting the Slackware server to do all the heavy lifting. I expect perhaps about 15-20 users at one sitting. Main uses - light web browsing, office, email.
Server hardware will be Intel Core 2 Quad, perhaps 8 or 16 GB RAM, software RAID of some kind.
What I am really curious to know is how Slackware 13 (64) and FreeNX would stack up together under such a load. Does anyone have experience of such a setup? While I have freedom to improve the school computer room however I see fit, I don't want to start such a project if the terminal server and FreeNX combination can't sustain reasonable throughput.
Many thanks.

I should add that the thin clients will have a stripped-down Linux OS of their own, with just a link to the NX client on the desktop. The server will not have to boot the clients over the LAN.

I think the throughput shouldn't be a problem on a 100Mb ethernet network, even if the clients have to boot just a thin image with the nx client, as the nx protocol don't require itself a lot of bandwidth (it works fine for me also on modem connections, you need just a bunch of Kbytes per client).
the core point in your case I think is about memory usage per user, so I would opt for a light desktop, lxde or some alternatives.

the only thing I can report is that, under slack64, sometimes, I need to restart my freenx server for loggin' in again (but the machine on which it runs it's not dedicated to nx so I cannot say how it works in that case).

This has been my experience over the last 24-48 hours, just running and testing FreeNX on localhost, and from my own laptop to my Slackware machine, with dummy accounts. Authentication has been hit and miss, which is disappointing. Needless to say, having an admin around to restart the server or flush the freenx cache whenever a user has problems logging in is out of the question. I suppose the alternatives - forwarding X, or TightVNC - would be too slow, even over a LAN?

the problem, I think, is not about authentication, but after that.
I'm trying to use it on slack64 as much as I can and the restarting problem happens only on some installs (so maybe it depends on an error of mine).

not implying anything special, just reporting: I setted up something similar (an nx terminal server with custom keys) on a ubuntu karmic with autentication on active directory (with likewise), but in this case, I don't have to restart the server.

but gezley, if I were you, I would give nx a shot: I think it's the best technology to bet on in these days.

if you want to debug your problems remember to enable logging in /etc/nxserver/node.conf (check that the nx user can write to the log file)and disable cleaning of sessions.

Good advice - something I forget occasionally! I think I will have to simulate the school environment in virtual machines - it's hard to judge what is happening when I am using FreeNX on localhost, with just my own account and a couple of dummy accounts. I do agree with you that FreeNX is the way to go. Performance is incredible. Thank you.