[Users] console confusion

[Joe Pruett]

my desktop system is  running centos6 with downloaded firefox 10.  i
downloaded and compiled spice-xpi 2.7.  i can interact with the console
one time, then i have to log out of the portal and back in again in
order to get the icon and popup menu to not be greyed out anymore.

so i have a few questions:

1. is this just an issue of using an unsupported browser?

2. ie9 seems to be supported, but i obviously need something more to be
able to view the console.  i don't get an error, so i'm not sure what i
should install.  the spice viewer i find at spice-space needs libraries
and the libraries there are just a zip file.  does something need to go
on the server to auto-download code?

3. i figured i'd try vnc, but in that case the icon and menu option are
always greyed out.  just trying vnc to the appropriate host requires a
password and none of the ones i'd suspect seem to work.  is there a
default?  or some way to find the password?

4. i saw some vague discussion of display networks in the manual, but
nothing in the interface seems to jump out at me. it seems like for most
uses, a simple web based console is what is needed.  java or active-x
(or javascript/canvas magic).  is this something that is in the
commercial version, but not the free one?

5. or am i just missing something painfully obvious?