We looked at many different remote access programs when looking for a remote access solution for Rutgers University’s Computer Science Department. None of them compared to the ease of use, value and performance we got from X2Go.

X2Go is the recommended Remote Access software for our Linux system. It performs very well on slow network connections and has crucial features we need. The ease of configuration of client software that supports all major OS (MacOS, Windows, Linux), low bandwidth requirement, low latency performance and ability to disconnect and reconnect previous sessions, are all crucial for our users.

The Computer Science Department at Rutgers University is 90% Linux based, but our users mostly use Windows and Macs at home. Noticing that most users have grown up with Windows and Mac graphical user interfaces (GUI), providing a remotely accessible Linux GUI is a crucial step to avoid the steep learning curve of the Linux SSH command line interface.

X2Go enables our users to access a full graphical interface of all our Linux system remotely as if they are sitting in front of computers in the labs or offices. This has reduced learning time for LinuxOS and helps our users go straight to learning and completing their class assignments.

After 18 months of using X2Go (started in Fall 2015 as documented in https://www.cs.rutgers.edu/resources/accessing-computer-science-linux-desktop-using-x2go), users reported very few issues. Prior to X2Go, we used X11VNC. This was harder to install and required more support. We had to deal with over 20 issues every semester compared to 1-2 a semester with X2Go.

- Hanz Makmur,

https://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~makmur/