From kragen@dnaco.net Sun Aug 2 14:11:54 1998 Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 14:11:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: unixsig@dmapub.dma.org, clug-user@clug.org Subject: Really Cool Stuff Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 966 Status: O X-Status: OK. I'm looking at CCF, VNC, Xlab, WINE, TCFS, and Coda. It looks like some *really* cool stuff is coming out of the Linux community at the moment. Here are some things you can do with these packages. (Note: of these packages, I have installed or used zero (0). This is all from claims on their webpages. Also, all these packages are GPLed or LGPLed, except for the audio stuff in CCF.) - CCF: I can run the GIMP on my machine, and have it appear on my co-worker's machine, too. I can make changes to the graphic, and so can they. We can edit text in Emacs together. I can look at the stuff that's happening on their machine and fix their problems just as if I'm sitting at his machine, with him watching. We can talk to each other vocally while we're doing this (CCF provides audioconferencing), and we can write notes to each other on the screen (with little arrows pointing at parts of our shared screen.) - VNC: I can sit at my Linux machine and control my WinNT machine as if I were sitting at its console. I can display my Linux screen on my WinNT machine, my Mac, or my Win95 machine, securely and without buying a copy of Exceed. I can have multiple users logged onto my Linux machine, running GUI apps, displaying them on Win32 and Mac machines. I can start working on something on one machine, disconnect, go to another part of the building (or go home), and reconnect over there. - VNC + CCF: I can run PowerPoint on my WinNT machine and display it on my Linux machine and my co-worker's Mac. We can work together in PowerPoint. - VNC + WINE: I can run multiple instances of Word 6.0 for Windows on my Linux machine and display them on Macs and Win32 machines. - VNC + Xlab: I can run an interactive Win32 app on my WinNT machine, and use it to provide information served up in Web queries from my Linux machine. I can run it from my crontab. - Coda: I can keep all my files on a central network server, but when the network goes down, I can keep working. I can disconnect my laptop from the network, take it home, edit some documents on the bus on the way home, and have the changes automatically reintegrated the next day. I can cluster several network servers, so that if one of them goes down, no one loses any work or has any downtime. - TCFS: I can store my files securely on an NFS server so that no one (even the server administrator) can read the files. No one tapping the network can read the files. (Unfortunately, since TCFS uses the NFS protocol to speak to the NFS server, you can't use Coda underneath TCFS. Yet.) These capabilities are *really* cool. The only ones that are unique to Linux are TCFS and WINE; most of the others also work with other kinds of Unix, and VNC and Coda even work with Win95 to some extent. Nevertheless, I think they would make some really kick-ass displays at a demofest. Kragen