[hamei]

I found that there was essentially no fast way to remote display to an IRIX machine. I tried simple X forwarding, all manner of VNC/TightVNC configurations, rdesktop, and I think even managed to build Xpra. None were fast enough to make web browsing actually enjoyable.

This is all quite spiffy (honest !) but I have to ask what you were doing that none of these methods was "enjoyable" ?  I ran an rdesktop connection across the room, straight fast ethernet, to a not-top-of-the-line Windows computer, displayed on the Octane. For everything I did it was fine. Not slow at all (although I did get a few complaints from the windows user, who was not aware that her cycles were being stolen). Admittedly, I didn't dare try that with pronography but otherwise, worked good. Even youtube.

No gaming tho, maybe that's where you'd see it ?