On 11/6/2013 17:29, Warren Young wrote:
>> I don't really have the *physical* room for an iMac, unless the screen
>> is tiny.
>
> OS X comes with VNC, configured and ready to go.
Although OS X does make a reasonable server, it's even better as a
client OS. Have you considered flipping this problem around, replacing
your current desktop machine and using it to access everything *else*
remotely? I wrote an article outlining the gotchas:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/723/726#726
If your CentOS boxes need the full power of dedicated hardware, OS X
makes a fine remote terminal for them. In the previous message, I
mentioned that OS X has built-in SSH and VNC servers, but it also has
built-in clients.
The built-in SSH client is OpenSSH from the Terminal. I find OS X's
Terminal much more functional and usable than Gnome Terminal on CentOS.
For an even better user experience, I recommend SecureCRT, a
commercial GUI SSH client for Windows, OS X, and Linux. I *live* in
SecureCRT 5 days a week. It is rock solid, and much more capable than
Terminal + OpenSSH.
OS X's includes an VNC client. You can run it directly, but it's
quicker to just say Cmd-G from Finder, then enter vnc://my.box.address
in the box that pops up. You can save these URLs for later use, so you
don't have to keep retying them. There are several more capable VNC
clients, including Apple's own ARD: https://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/
If you can put your CentOS boxes in VMs, OS X is probably the least
troublesome VM host I've ever used. OS X is great GUI platform with
strong usability norms, but is also a real Unix underneath so VM systems
can do everything they need in order to be transparent hosts. Linux
fails the first criterion, and Windows fails the second.
A particularly nice feature of OS X is the full-screen app mode, which
lets you put your VMs on dedicated virtual screens, kind of like virtual
desktops feature of some X window managers, except that they are not
hosting desktops, but instead app windows that take over the screen
completely. Then you can Ctrl-Arrow around to switch OSes, with the
keyboard and mouse moving between them seamlessly.
I almost never physically touch a CentOS box, even though I use them
pretty much every day. Between VNC and SSH, I don't need to.
Also consider that a Macbook Pro is plenty powerful enough to run VMs at
reasonable speed. In clamshell mode, an MBP is kind of like a mini:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3131
A mini is far more compact, though, and cheaper.
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