Re: Seaside/Squeak/Linux: service with GUI as needed

>  (1) Pharo image(s) run as service(s); the computer is (ab)used pretty
>  much as an appliance; technicians are told to plug in the network cable,
>  then turn on the box, and if all is well, it "just works".

That's already possible.

>  (2) most (Smalltalk) configuration tasks happen via a Seaside interface.

What configuration tasks? If these are not yet available an interface
could certainly be built. OmniBrowser and the XUL integration is also
a possibility here.

>  (3) I realize that I can edit code through Seaside's halos, but I will
>  sometimes want to interact graphically with the Squeak image; it will be
>  doing other things beyond serving Seaside pages.  I envision (please
>  tell me if there are better ways) making a remote desktop (or similar)
>  connection to the server, stopping the offending service, and restarting
>  it as a desktop user to debug, save the changed image, exit, restart the
>  service, and log out.

OmniBrowser.

>  Is this a SSH/VNC task, or is there a better way.  Some things I have
>  read appear to suggest that one can simply use VNC to attach to the
>  running Squeak service and a GUI instantly appears???  That seems too
>  slick to expect it to work.

RemoteFrameBuffer is perfect to do that. Like this you start you image
headless on the server, and use a VNC client to connect to the screen
from anywhere. I use that on all my servers.

>  Do things change if one replaces Linux with Windows?  I am trying to
>  escape, but it will take some time to complete the transfer.

Linux is great for deployment. A long time ago I did some deployment
on Windows servers. What's inside the image (e.g. RemoteFrameBuffer)
works equally well. The host OS is not so cool ...

Cheers,
Lukas

--

-- 
Lukas Renggli
http://www.lukas-renggli.ch