At the moment its a single LINUX box to lots of (X) PC clients, so it sounds as if VNC is worth I try. I've only used VNC to remotely administer/monitor PC stations/servers.
Are these PCs thick clients running an X application, or thin ones booting from (?)?
I'd be interested to know how the loading of multiple VNC sessions on the LINUX box compared to multiple X sessions. I had the feeling that VNC was quite demanding on processor activity to analyse and compress screen data...perhaps I'm wrong. X is no lightweight either generating a fair amount of net traffic (especially with multiple users running asteroids...if they learn how to access our LINUX box we let them play games for while.)
I'd use X where the client has X, and VNC for convenience when it doesn't, like we can't afford the X client for our Acorn kit. VNC works fine from clients that are 200MHz or over. At the server end it *is* a noticeable load, you are right, but it's worth it. You can run the VNC server on any spare machine too, it does not have to run on the xdm/applications server. -- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-820527 or 07798 636725 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk