Feedback Chromebook and NX

[drichard]

I just wanted to pass along to Forum members our experience using a Chromebook and NX.   The first and biggest consideration is to get a model that supports using the Play Store.   This allows you to use the native NX client, along with offering VPN clients for enterprise deployments.

We decided to use the Acer Chromebook 14, available on Amazon for about $260.  At first, the Play store did not appear, but then it was noted that it was downloading a newer version of Chrome OS.  After reboot, the Play store appeared and worked perfectly.  I downloaded our VPN client, and then the NX client.  Both work and run on this device.

I was able to connect with our VPN client and then ran the NX client.  I was able to enter in the appropriate information and our GNOME desktop appeared and worked perfectly well.  Remote sound worked, and playing Youtube videos on the server worked fine and sound played as expected.  Cool stuff.  I will be using this device more heavily in the coming weeks, and we’re excited about the development.  Potentially this could save a lot of money vs buying Fat PCs.

Here are the issues of note, I would call them peculiarities:

* The NX client opens as if it’s phone sized and when you resize it goes full screen and alerts you that it might not work — but does.

* You do not get any visual cues from the server for certain hover events.  I think this is because the client is designed with touch devices in mind.  For instance if you hover over the corner of a window, the window manager does not change the mouse pointer.   But, the resize works

* The helper popup tool that appears over the NX canvas seems to land in the wrong place, but does move with a little mouse clicking.

* It seems like spinning the mouse wheel is not always working as expected.  I perceive this too is because the client is expecting to be on a touch device.

[Tor]

Hi. We’re happy to know your experience on Chromebook! We’ve done many fixes and specific changes to support correctly Chrome OS and will keep doing it because, as you said, it’s a great opportunity for remote working.

We’re currently working on improving window initial size and resizes, and we’d like to do something for cursor images, but unluckily Android doesn’t offer easy and reliable ways to do it. As workaround you may enable showing the remote cursor.

About the mouse wheel, did you maybe notice if the experience is the same with multiple mouse models?

[Author]

Posts