This is going to be a really short post, because there's not much to say about this. Something that Windows does very well is RDP, the remote desktop protocol. It's by far the best way of getting a remote (as in over-the-internet) full desktop environment I've used - fast, smooth, no different from sitting in front of the local machine.
Linux has a couple of alternatives to RDP; primarily just using X over the network or forwarded through an SSH connection. You can either launch individual applications on remote computers, or get a full remote desktop using XDMCP. This is great when you have a fast network link to the machine you're working on, but slows horribly when you have a limited bandwidth link. The second alternative is VNC - a cross-platform protocol that works by basically taking screenshots of screen areas that change, compressing them, and sending them to a client running on your computer. It's quite a lot faster than X over the internet, but still not fast enough. Incidentally, this is what Mac OS uses as its remote desktop protocol.
Come on, let's have a good fast remote desktop protocol! It's worth some effort - X is the best window system there is, with an RDP equivalent built in it would be awesome.
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