nanogui: Thread: Can Nano-X display on remote X-term

Hi:

   This may be a FAQ. I apologise if the answer is already written 
somewhere.

Can Nano-X display on remote X-term, much like regular X would?

I have developed an embedded system without any sort of graphics or 
keyboard. The board is running uCLinux. It has an ether interface. I would 
like to run a graphical app and interact via x-term. Does nano-X support 
such display?

If not, what are the alternatives to nano-X? I would rather not bring in 
the full X-11 because my board may not have the resources.

Thank you,
Wojtek

maybe i misunderstood your situation.
if i remember right nano-X support some form of VNC server, but...
what's the benefit in having an X server on a display-less device?
Why don't you put a webserver on your board, and write your app as html pages?

L.

On 14/10/2010 20:46, Wojtek Skulski wrote:
> Hi:
>
> This may be a FAQ. I apologise if the answer is already written somewhere.
>
> Can Nano-X display on remote X-term, much like regular X would?
>
> I have developed an embedded system without any sort of graphics or
> keyboard. The board is running uCLinux. It has an ether interface. I
> would like to run a graphical app and interact via x-term. Does nano-X
> support such display?
>
> If not, what are the alternatives to nano-X? I would rather not bring in
> the full X-11 because my board may not have the resources.
>
> Thank you,
> Wojtek
>
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-- 
*Luca  Santini*
//Elettronica di Sistema//

*SPES. S.c.p.a*
Via  Lamberto Corsi, 43
60044 Fabriano (AN)
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Luca:

I apologise if I was not clear. My goal is the following: my new board is 
running ucLinux. It is a VME board. It does not have its own display. But 
it has a gigabit ethernet interface. I want to run an app which will popup 
a window on a remote machine, either a regular Linux box or Windows. I do 
not care, whether the remote machine is Linux or Windows. Can be either.

I am probably confusing "server" with "client". I am sorry for that. I 
just want to say that my board does not have any sort of graphics chipset 
on-board. All what it has is gigabit ethernet.

I must confess I am not sure what is VNC. In good old days I used to build 
my own PC boxes with graphics cards and run Linux on these. I still 
rememer the fun of setting up X-servers and getting all the resolutions. 
But it was 15 years ago. I did not encounter VNC back then. So perhaps I 
am now misusing the nomenclature.

In any case, I described my goals. Can nano-X help?

Thank you -- Wojtek

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010, Luca Santini wrote:

> maybe i misunderstood your situation.
> if i remember right nano-X support some form of VNC server, but...
> what's the benefit in having an X server on a display-less device?
> Why don't you put a webserver on your board, and write your app as html 
> pages?
>
> L.
>
> On 14/10/2010 20:46, Wojtek Skulski wrote:
>> Hi:
>> 
>> This may be a FAQ. I apologise if the answer is already written somewhere.
>> 
>> Can Nano-X display on remote X-term, much like regular X would?
>> 
>> I have developed an embedded system without any sort of graphics or
>> keyboard. The board is running uCLinux. It has an ether interface. I
>> would like to run a graphical app and interact via x-term. Does nano-X
>> support such display?
>> 
>> If not, what are the alternatives to nano-X? I would rather not bring in
>> the full X-11 because my board may not have the resources.
>> 
>> Thank you,
>> Wojtek
>> 
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: ####@####.####
>> For additional commands, e-mail: ####@####.####
>> 
>> 
>
> -- 
> *Luca  Santini*
> //Elettronica di Sistema//
>
> *SPES. S.c.p.a*
> Via  Lamberto Corsi, 43
> 60044 Fabriano (AN)
> tel. +39 0732 25291 diretto 0732 2529451
> fax +39 0732 2529441
> ####@####.#### ####@####.####
> www.spesonline.com <http://www.spesonline.com>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: ####@####.####
> For additional commands, e-mail: ####@####.####
>
>

On 14/10/2010 22:18, Wojtek Skulski wrote:
> Luca:
>
> I apologise if I was not clear. My goal is the following: my new board
> is running ucLinux. It is a VME board. It does not have its own display.
> But it has a gigabit ethernet interface.

> I want to run an app which will
> popup a window on a remote machine, either a regular Linux box or
> Windows. I do not care, whether the remote machine is Linux or Windows.
> Can be either.

AFAIK you can't 'pop up' windows.
You can run a "service" (the server) on your board and connect to it
with a client. The client will run on an arbitrary platform: win,lin,mac...

This is what you see when you try to configure a router:
a web server is running on the router, and you connect to it with your browser (client).

if you want to "view" the X-server running on your board from your pc (and the apps running on it),
you need a VNC server running on youe board, and a VNC viewer (client) running on your pc.

I'm confident this can be done with nano-X, but the display-less server may be a complication;
maybe you'll need some hack to use a portion of ram as "display" and point the server to it.
I hope someone else can help you more than me on this.

In my opinion, the web way is simpler in your case. But maybe i'm wrong, i don't know
what you want to display, and if it is simple to render via HTML.

>
> I am probably confusing "server" with "client". I am sorry for that. I
> just want to say that my board does not have any sort of graphics
> chipset on-board. All what it has is gigabit ethernet.
>



> I must confess I am not sure what is VNC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing


> In good old days I used to
> build my own PC boxes with graphics cards and run Linux on these. I
> still rememer the fun of setting up X-servers and getting all the
> resolutions. But it was 15 years ago. I did not encounter VNC back then.
> So perhaps I am now misusing the nomenclature.
>
> In any case, I described my goals. Can nano-X help?
>
> Thank you -- Wojtek
>
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010, Luca Santini wrote:
>
>> maybe i misunderstood your situation.
>> if i remember right nano-X support some form of VNC server, but...
>> what's the benefit in having an X server on a display-less device?
>> Why don't you put a webserver on your board, and write your app as
>> html pages?
>>
>> L.
>>
>> On 14/10/2010 20:46, Wojtek Skulski wrote:
>>> Hi:
>>>
>>> This may be a FAQ. I apologise if the answer is already written
>>> somewhere.
>>>
>>> Can Nano-X display on remote X-term, much like regular X would?
>>>
>>> I have developed an embedded system without any sort of graphics or
>>> keyboard. The board is running uCLinux. It has an ether interface. I
>>> would like to run a graphical app and interact via x-term. Does nano-X
>>> support such display?
>>>
>>> If not, what are the alternatives to nano-X? I would rather not bring in
>>> the full X-11 because my board may not have the resources.
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>> Wojtek
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: ####@####.####
>>> For additional commands, e-mail: ####@####.####
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> *Luca Santini*
>> //Elettronica di Sistema//
>>
>> *SPES. S.c.p.a*
>> Via Lamberto Corsi, 43
>> 60044 Fabriano (AN)
>> tel. +39 0732 25291 diretto 0732 2529451
>> fax +39 0732 2529441
>> ####@####.#### ####@####.####
>> www.spesonline.com <http://www.spesonline.com>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: ####@####.####
>> For additional commands, e-mail: ####@####.####
>>
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: ####@####.####
> For additional commands, e-mail: ####@####.####
>
>

-- 
*Luca  Santini*
//Elettronica di Sistema//

*SPES. S.c.p.a*
Via  Lamberto Corsi, 43
60044 Fabriano (AN)
tel. +39 0732 25291 diretto 0732 2529451
fax +39 0732 2529441
####@####.#### ####@####.####
www.spesonline.com <http://www.spesonline.com>

: Can Nano-X display on remote X-term, much like regular X would?

I assume you're asking whether the nano-X server and
an associated nano-X client application can run on seperate
computer systems, using the network to connect between them,
for display.

The current codebase uses UNIX sockets to connect clients
with the server.  A named socket on the /tmp filesystem is used
for the connect() operation, and does not currently explicitly
support TCP rather than UNIX connections.  It's not too much
work to add support for connecting to a remote socket rather
than local socket.  I seem to remember somebody said they
wrote TCP connection support, but I don't have the patch.

If you're familiar with network programming using sockets,
I can help you should you want to add this support.

Regards,

Greg

Greg:

> I assume you're asking whether the nano-X server and
> an associated nano-X client application can run on seperate
> computer systems, using the network to connect between them,
> for display.

  My board is an embedded board for research. (It is shown on my 
website http://www.skutek.com/VME.htm.) The board will be doing 
sophisticated signal processing where diagnostics will be paramount. Yet 
it lacks any kind of graphics of its own. I was thinking of running the 
histogramming package on the board, but how to watch the results? One 
possible solution is that the graphics can be cast over the network to 
another computer. That "another computer" will be a regular workstation 
running either Windows or Linux. Thus, only my board will be running 
nano-X. The receiving end will be a regualar workstation running whatever.

From the answers from Pete and Luca I gather that it will be possible to 
somehow do this:

     MY BOARD with Blackfin uCLinux           DISPLAY,KEYBOARD,MOUSE
   ---------------------------------         |-------------------
   histogramming and               |   LAN   | workstation with |
   data processing      ---> nanoX | <-----> | screen, keyboard |
   running under ucLinux           |         | Windows or Linux |
   ---------------------------------         --------------------

If this can be realised then nanoX would only be used on one end, while 
the workstation end will be using regular Windows or Linux display.

I am trying to gather enough info to determine whether nanoX would be a 
feasible solution as sketched above, or should I rather look into the 
direction of embedding a web server on my board.

Concerning programming: I am actually more on the hardware side 
(board design and FPGA programming) and doing software with only great 
difficulty. I can promise digging into the code, but I cannot promise I 
will emerge back alive from such a dive ;-)

Thank you,

Wojtek


On Thu, 14 Oct 2010, Greg Haerr wrote:

> : Can Nano-X display on remote X-term, much like regular X would?
>
> The current codebase uses UNIX sockets to connect clients
> with the server.  A named socket on the /tmp filesystem is used
> for the connect() operation, and does not currently explicitly
> support TCP rather than UNIX connections.  It's not too much
> work to add support for connecting to a remote socket rather
> than local socket.  I seem to remember somebody said they
> wrote TCP connection support, but I don't have the patch.
>
> If you're familiar with network programming using sockets,
> I can help you should you want to add this support.
>
> Regards,
>
> Greg
>
>

  On 10/14/2010 10:18 PM, Wojtek Skulski wrote:
>
>  My goal is the following: my new board is running ucLinux. It is a
> VME board. It does not have its own display. But it has a gigabit
> ethernet interface. I want to run an app which will popup a window on
> a remote machine, either a regular Linux box or Windows. I do not
> care, whether the remote machine is Linux or Windows. Can be either.
>
> I am probably confusing "server" with "client".

You can run an X server on your PC This is the standard "Unix-type" way 
of doing a GUI. There are (free) X-Server programs for Windows, as well. 
The problem is that the PC is the server, so you need another network 
connection to the device (e.g. Telnet or SSH) to start the GUI program 
(this could be e.g. KDE) that will attach to the (remote) X-Server.

"XMING" (e.g. for Windows) can automate this process so that the 
embedded device now seems to be the server to the PC-user.

"NX" does this in a much more professional way (and additionally 
compresses and encrypts the X-traffic via SSH). So there only is a a 
single network connection

With these solution you don't needs an X-server in the embedded device 
at all, but you do need a fully fledged Widget Set installation, unless 
you application uses the X-API directly instead of a standard 
Widget-based GUI API (such as GTK).

VNC, OTOH uses a local X- (or nano-X) server and synchronizes it's 
output with the PC screen output. Here you need the Widget Set and the X 
server on the remote device. But AFAIK, the nano-X installation 
including the Widget set is by far smaller than just GTK or a similar 
full fledged Widget set, Moreover the GUI program can run even if no PC 
is attached.

-Michael

  On 10/14/2010 10:03 PM, Luca Santini wrote:
> Why don't you put a webserver on your board, and write your app as
> html pages?
IMHO it's a very viable request to run standard GUI applications on a 
headless device.

You can do a Framebuffer device that just manages a memory array without 
display hardware.

Now you should be able to access the graphic output (and virtual 
Keyboard and Mouse devices) via VNC or (maybe even better NX). I do hope 
this is supported by Nano-X, as a full X solution would need a lot more 
resources.

Using a remote X server often is not a good idea as the said GUI program 
should be able to start and run automatically in an embedded device and 
the GUI and a remote "head" would only attached when you want to do some 
kind of manual service.

I myself face this issue when porting embedded projects from a PC based 
solution to a more deeply embedded controller.

-Michael

  On 10/15/2010 01:20 AM, Greg Haerr wrote:
>
> If you're familiar with network programming using sockets,
> I can help you should you want to add this support.
GREAT !

I feel that this should even be possible without any change in the 
X-server itself by adding a port-forwarding application that just copies 
the stream from the pipe in /tmp to a a TCP/IP socket.. Maybe even a 
shell or "cp" could be able to do that. Of course it would be a nice 
enhancement for the nanoX if the server would be enabled to open a 
TCP/IP port to get it's data and a small "X-Forwarder" would be provided 
that opens a TCP/IP port for sending the X data stream.

Does this socket support only the Graphics, or are Keyboard and Mouse 
events run through this (or another) socket, too ?

-Michael

:     MY BOARD with Blackfin uCLinux           DISPLAY,KEYBOARD,MOUSE
:   ---------------------------------         |-------------------
:   histogramming and               |   LAN   | workstation with |
:   data processing      ---> nanoX | <-----> | screen, keyboard |
:   running under ucLinux           |         | Windows or Linux |
:   ---------------------------------         --------------------
: 
: If this can be realised then nanoX would only be used on one end, while 
: the workstation end will be using regular Windows or Linux display.

This should work fine, except in the case where the 
processor endianness or structure/wordsize differs.  To
keep things small, nano-X doesn't convert between
network/host bit or byte order across the network.

Regards,

Greg