At RWTH Aachen, X2Go is used as part of the mathematics students' training. The students must enroll in several hands-on training classes, includung, among others, programming practice and understanding computer algebra systems. These training classes are carried out on computers with a Linux operating system. For most of our first-year students, this is their first encounter with a Linux operating system. To enable the students to work on their assignments outside of their assigned lab time, we previously relied on a FreeNX server, which was replaced with an X2Go server in 2013.

Many of the students have installed the client on their computers and use it regularly.

We experience usage peaks of up to 50 simultaneous open connections. Using a resource-efficient desktop environment like IceWM has turned out to lessen the load on the server significantly. For the very same reason, KDE and Gnome Desktop are not used - they spawn way too many processes at login, thus placing unneccessary load on RAM and CPU.

The students seem to get along very well with the software. In the last 3 years there have not beem more than aproxximately 5 support calls regarding its installation or use.

- Frank Knoben

RWTH Aachen University