X11 vector graphics mode

[Steve92]

Hello,

I read this page:

NoMachine – The X11 Vector Graphics Mode In X Window Virtual Desktop – Knowledge Base

but I don’t understand very well this statement :

“The X11 vector graphics mode (previously known as “lightweight” mode), enabled by default, is a server side configuration available since v. 4.2.15 in all of the enterprise-oriented server products that support the virtual desktop functionality (N.B. Enterprise Desktop does not support the virtual desktop functionality. This product is for access to the physical display).“

How can !M detect if it connects to a virtual or physical display ?

Waiting for my official testing environment, I did a small test on a very basic one.

VPS (KVM)
Debian 12
1 CPU, 2 GB RAM (!)
LXDE
!M Enterprise Desktop for Linux-x86_64, amd64
v 8.13.1_1

When I’m connected with !M to this machine from a Linux PC, the desktop of the VPS is detected as a physical display.
It seems quite strange, doesn’t it ?

I certainly miss something for my understanding…

Please, could you enlight me ?

Regards,

Steve.

[Britgirl]

Hi,

The X11 vector graphics mode is a server side configuration available in all of the NoMachine Terminal Server Products. These products support the NoMachine virtual desktop functionality. As written in that article, Enterprise Desktop does not support this functionality. Enterprise Desktop, like it’s free version counterpart, is for access to the physical display. By “virtual desktop functionality”, we refer to “NoMachine virtual desktop”, not the virtual desktop of the hypervisor technology you could be using.

How can !M detect if it connects to a virtual or physical display ?

For NoMachine, whether the OS is running on a virtual machine or a physical machine is irrelevant in terms of what NoMachine will detect. In fact NoMachine software can be installed on physical machines, virtual machines, cloud-based systems, wherever there is a desktop environment installed there. NoMachine will detect a display (an x server) and let you connect to it. On Linux, when connecting to a desktop which doesn’t have an X server running (e.g. it’s a headless machine), NoMachine is able to use its own display service, what we call an embedded X server, to let users connect seamlessly to the physical desktop on the remote machine.

When I’m connected with !M to this machine from a Linux PC, the desktop of the VPS is detected as a physical display. It seems quite strange, doesn’t it ?

Not at all. Enterprise Desktop is doing its job 🙂 On Linux systems, if it doesn’t detect a display when you request a connection, it will tell you and give you the option to start its own display service.

On the other hand, you want to run multiple desktops on the same Linux host (the virtual desktop functionality mentioned earlier), you need a NoMachine Terminal Server product. Try Workstation to start off with. This will let you run up to 4 NoMachine desktops concurrently.

Some additional information you will find useful:

https://www.nomachine.com/creating-nomachine-virtual-desktop-sessions-on-linux
https://kb.nomachine.com/AR10K0070000

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