The term “desktop virtualization” describes the ability to display a graphical desktop from one computer system on another computer system or smart display device. This term is used to describe software such as Virtual Network Computing (VNC, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VNC), thin clients such as Microsoft’s Remote Desktop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Protocol) and associated Terminal Server products, Linux terminal servers such as the Linux Terminal Server project (LTSP, http://sourceforge.net/projects/ltsp/), NoMachine’s NX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NX_technology), and even the X Window System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System) and its XDMCP display manager protocol. Many window managers, particularly those based on the X Window System, also provide internal support for multiple, virtual desktops that the user can switch between and use to display the output of specific applications. In the X Window System, virtual desktops were introduced in versions of Tom LeStrange’s TWM window manager (www.xwinman.org/vtwm.php, with a nice family tree at www.vtwm.org/vtwm-family.html), but are now available in almost every other window manager. The X Window System also supports desktop virtualization at the screen or display level, enabling window managers to use a display region that is larger than the physical size of your monitor.
In my opinion, desktop virtualization is more of a bandwagon use of the term “virtualization” than an exciting example of virtualization concepts. It does indeed make the graphical console of any supported system into a logical entity that can be accessed and used on different physical computer systems, but it does so using standard client/server display software. The remote console, the operating system it is running, and the applications you execute are actually still running on a single, specific physical machine — you’re just looking at them from somewhere else. Calling remote display software a virtualization technology seems to me to be equivalent to considering a telescope to be a set of virtual eyeballs because you can look at something far away using one. Your mileage may vary.
Taken from : William Von Hagen "Professional Xen Virtualization" 2008
In my opinion, desktop virtualization is more of a bandwagon use of the term “virtualization” than an exciting example of virtualization concepts. It does indeed make the graphical console of any supported system into a logical entity that can be accessed and used on different physical computer systems, but it does so using standard client/server display software. The remote console, the operating system it is running, and the applications you execute are actually still running on a single, specific physical machine — you’re just looking at them from somewhere else. Calling remote display software a virtualization technology seems to me to be equivalent to considering a telescope to be a set of virtual eyeballs because you can look at something far away using one. Your mileage may vary.
Taken from : William Von Hagen "Professional Xen Virtualization" 2008
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