neatx setup

I had been using NoMachine NX server on my computer for a while, but I recently started making a serious effort to fully free my computer by using only free software, so I replaced it with neatx.

Here are the steps I took to install neatx.

1. Download the neatx source:

   svn checkout http://neatx.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ neatx-read-only 

2. Follow the instructions in the INSTALL file (under the Redhat/Fedora/RPM-based distros section) for building an rpm

   • sudo yum install yum-utils rpmdevtools

   • rpmdev-setuptree

   • cd /path/to/neatx/tree

   • tar czf ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/neatx-0.1.tar.gz *

   • rpmbuild -bs extras/rpm/neatx.spec --nodeps

   • sudo yum-builddep ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/neatx-*.src.rpm

   • rpmbuild -bb extras/rpm/neatx.spec

   • sudo yum install --nogpgcheck ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/i386/neatx*

3. Edit the neatx configuration file on the server and set the environment variable on the NX client so that the protocol versions match. neatx is very picky about this. It requires an exact version match. I intend on modifying the program so that it does not have this restriction. I'll post the details of the changes required once I get around to making the modifications.

   In this example, I will be setting the protocol version to 3.2.0.

   sudo vi /etc/neatx.conf

   and changing the line

   nx-protocol-version = 3.3.0

   to

   nx-protocol-version = 3.2.0

   Change the environment variable NX_PROTOCOL_VERSION before starting opennx. For example, with the following command.

   NX_PROTOCOL_VERSION=3.2.0 opennx

   Other ways to set the protocol version in the opennx client include editing the shortcut icon so that it sets the environment variable there, or setting environment variable so that it is systemwide or in a user's shell rc file.

   In Gnome, I edited the menu shortcut icon with the following steps.

   1. Open a terminal.
   2. Without pressing enter at the end, type in vi (or the command for any other text editor) with a space after it.
   3. Select the opennx menu item in the Gnome panel, click and hold the mouse button over it for a second.
   4. Drag the icon out into the terminal window. This puts the location of the icon into the the terminal.
   5. In the terminal, press Enter.
   6. Change the Exec= line so that the /usr/bin/opennx part is preceded by env NX_PROTOCOL_VERSION=3.2.0, so that it look like this:

      Exec=env NX_PROTOCOL_VERSION=3.2.0 /usr/bin/opennx