,
16 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
This is how I use the X Windows protocol. 
2/ So this is a hilariously funny joke, made funnier by the fact that it's true, so buckle in for a longish thread as I explain the joke.
3/ Currently, the Internet is waiting for the massive worm infecting a million Windows computers vulnerable to a RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) 0day spreading ransomware and DDoS attacks. What is RDP?
4/ RDP is the protocol created primarily by Microsoft so that, as it says, you can have a remote Windows experience, where everything runs on a distant computer, but the graphic interface is on your local computer.
5/ One reason for RDP is that so that you can install an app on a single server, with security controls, and have users remotely login. Some corporations use really cheap $200 computers for user desktops and really expense servers to run these applications.
6/ It's just like Telnet or SSH into a remote computer, but it's a full graphical experience. This is a big deal for system administration, which is normally done from the command-line on Linux, but is done with graphical apps on Windows.
7/ Back in the dark ages, by which I mean the 1980s before the web and google, Unix had already solved this program with the X Windows protocol. Telnet was the remote command-line, X Windows was the remote GUI.
8/ X Windows is also the way the LOCAL GUI works in modern Unix. It's how your local app creates windows, draws lines, paints graphics, and so on. There are kludges to make this work efficiently. But essentially, apps on Linux can be configured to display on remote computers.
9/ But X Windows sucks compared to RDP. It's essentially the same difference between uncompressed data and compressed data. RDP is vastly more efficient.
10/ If you want a remote GUI on Linux, you have three choices: the native built-in X Windows, a protocol called VNC, or RDP, using one of the many open source implementations. I use something called 'xrdp' on Linux.
11/ Seriously, 'xrdp' is what you should using instead of VNC or X Windows for remote Linux desktops. It's efficiency and latency is so much better.
12/ Anyway, there's RDP programs: the one the user runs on their local computer, and the backend one running on the remote computer. In my screenshot, I'm using a MacBook running Microsoft's RDP program.
13/ Microsoft created this program so people with macOS computers can still use RDP to access Windows apps on remote computers. But of course, it's also compatible with non-Microsoft RDP backends, and works fine with 'xrdp' running on Linux.
14/ Thus, in the screenshot, we have macOS running apps on a remote Linux computer using a protocol and software designed by Microsoft. So it's a perversion.
15/ Anyway, to top it off, what I'm running on that remote desktop is just a terminal command-prompt. In other words, I could just telnet/ssh instead of going through the effort of doing a remote GUI. So double perversion.
16/ Anyway, on a serious note, for my lab, I use RDP a lot instead of X Windows or VNC.
