Virtual Network Computing
VNC Freely available here!
What is VNC? - A practical introduction
VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is, in essence, a remote display system which allows you to view a computing 'desktop' environment not only on the machine where it is running, but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machine architectures.
Many of us at ORL, for example, use a VNC viewer running on a PC on our desks to display our Unix environments which are running on a large server in the machine room downstairs.
What makes it different from other systems?
For this simple mode of operation, you could achieve a similar effect by installing an X server on your PC. The important factors which distinguish VNC from other remote display systems such as X are as follows:
Where does the name come from?
The name originates from our development of very-thin-client ATM network computers. The Videotile was essentially an LCD display with a pen input and a fast ATM connection. Because the VNC viewer is a software-only version of our Videotile, and so provides 'workstations' which can be created or deleted at will, we named the system Virtual Network Computing.
Can I see what it looks like?
We have some screenshots of very simple VNC desktops running and being displayed on a variety of platforms.
More details can be found in the documentation
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