Re: Don't forget the some folks use network access to Gnome

[Brian Nitz <Brian Nitz Sun COM>]

Olav Vitters wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 07, 2007 at 12:13:19PM +0000, Seb James wrote:
>   
> > 1) It would be really nice if the "reduced resources" switch was
> > available in the normal Gnome Windows preferences UI
> > (Desktop->Preferences->Windows). The "reduced resources" switch I mean
> > is the one availabe in gconf-editor as
> > apps->metacity->general->reduced_resources on my Debian Sarge desktop.
> >     
>
> And what the purpose would this serve? If a slow connection means that
> you want to have GNOME use less resources, it should just use less
> resources. Meaning: there shouldn't be an option to do the right thing
> (if detectable).
It isn't always detectable.  For example, from a GNOME application point 
of view (or for that matter, any X11 application), Sun Ray thin clients 
appear to be just another frame buffer.  Since the connection between 
the virtual frame buffer on the server and Sun Ray thin-client is 
asynchronous, the application doesn't have any cross-platform way of 
knowing that the display behind this framebuffer is at the end of a long 
cable called "the Internet."  We typically rely on the sysadmin to set 
appropriate gconf parameters (and disable xscreensaver hacks) during Sun 
Ray deployment.  I don't think autodetection would help much here 
because which desktop eye-candy you enable depends on what type of 
multiuser system you have (fat, thin, swap over IP, ultrathin...) and 
what resource and network bandwidth is available. 

There is a Sun Ray API for determining client-server bandwidth so we 
could hook it into any GNOME "am_I_on_a_thin_client()" API, but I'd be 
more interested in whether we could do something to avoid excessive 
screen updates and resource consumption for detached virtual frame 
buffers.  Maybe putting an "is_anyone_watching_my_display()" in the gdk 
main loop and increasing poll intervals appropriately?