Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by TacticalCoder 3 days ago
> I really wish people gave a damn about the “gui over the network” problem x11 solves.

Security-wise there are concerns but...

Early dial-up Internet days (early for me), 28.8k modem, I was already running Linux, probably on a 486. I also had a very old PC laptop (I think a friend of my parents gifted it to me after he got a new one from work), a 386 I think (with the horrible slow display/refresh rate: a TFT IIRC). I used a parallel cable and PLIP (Parallel Line IP) and X11 networking to send a window manager+browser from the desktop (the 486) to the laptop.

So my brother and I could both go on the Internet at the same time.

It felt like the future and, honestly, we've kinda seriously regressed when it comes to "GUI over the network".
1 comments
simonask 3 days ago
Your story here also illustrates why GUI over the network used to be a much more important use case than it currently is.

These days it’s unbelievably niche, as opposed to more controlled screen sharing scenarios. I think it’s understandable that it doesn’t get a high priority.

link