Rent your personal online Linux desktop

Recently I've found a new and apart service privided by InQub Limited, an independent service provider. They offer personal remote Gnome desktops on Ubuntu systems and KDE desktops on Kubuntu installations, for a small monthly charge that starts at $4.50 per month.

What does this mean? This means, you get a complete graphical Linux desktop accessible over the internet for your personal use. The desktop is hosted on a powerfull application server, ready available anytime and anywhere you have an internet connection. It comes with 1 GB of home directory storage space, customizable by the respective user, and the most commonly needed desktop applications like office processor, internet browser, email client and instant messenger, image editors, various games and development tools, archive manager and many more.

I was interested and registered for a free 7-day trial with 100 MB storage space. The setup is very easy, all you need locally is an internet connection and one of NoMachine's NX client software. It can be downloaded free of charge for all popular Operating Systems: Linux, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS/X. I am currently running Fedora Core 5 Linux, and downloaded an RPM. Installation was smooth, no dependency problems, no errors. I was one step away from my remote desktop, so I started the client. After adding my password and server hostname, that I got both on my email address, I selected my preffered desktop (Gnome) and logged in. Even on my lame internet connection, the desktop was up and running in less than 10 seconds.

The first thing I've done, was to check the available applications. It's almost everything installed and running that you need on a basic desktop PC.

Here is a list of the most usefull aplications:

• Office productivity

• • OpenOffice.org (office suite)
  • AbiWord (word processor)
  • Scribus (document layout software)
  • Adobe Reader (PDF reader)
  • Gnome Ghostview (Postscript viewer)

• Internet

• • Firefox, Konqueror, Epiphany (web browsers)
  • Thunderbird, Evolution (email clients)
  • Gaim, Kopete, XChat, Konversation (instant messenger and IRC)
  • Akregator (RSS feed reader)

• Graphics

• • gThumb, Eye of Gnome (image viewer)
  • The Gimp, GNU Paint, Tux Paint (image editor and drawing)
  • Blender (3D modeller)
  • Dia (structured diagrams)
  • XaoS (fractal generator)

• Development

• • Eclipse (java development)
  • Quanta Plus (web development)
  • KDevelop, VI Improved (multilanguage development)
  • Screem (HTML/XML editor)

• Utilities and entertainment

• • Available are also a lot of other usefull tools like file archiver, calculator, dictionary, etc.
  • Printing manager (Cups) and Samba file sharing.
  • Entertainment applications and various games.

The desktop looks nice, you can customize it to fit your preferences, change background, fonts, colors, configure the mouse and keybourd and even a screensaver is available.

But how to transfer files from local PC to remote server? File transfers are done using SCP or SFTP protocolls. A commonly used client application for Linux users is gFTP. For Microsoft Windows I recommend WinSCP.

The company claims that data exchanged between your local computer and the application servers is protected by strong encryption, ensuring the privacy and integrity of your session data and your transferred files.

The only left question: Is is worth? According to InQub, this service is ideal for:

Linux Beginners who don't want to go through the hassles of a Linux installation, Occasional Linux Users who don't want to have a dual boot configuration or Frequent Travellers who are tired of customizing dozens of computers.

. An alternative for beginners and/or occasional Linux users are LiveCD's, but for travellers it is a really good service. They certainly won't have always 1GB of space and or all needed applications available.