Someone tell me I'm wrong 16744

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Lin¿nut wrote on Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:22:49 -0500

Personally, I'd like to see how both compare to a remotely shared X desktop. I'm not sure how to properly set that up, as there are a number of issues:

1 One can of course ssh in easily enough. To the local system it looks like text-in-a-window; the remote system sees a pty feeding a shell. Since SIGWIN also propagates through one gets natural enough behavior for such editors as vi and emacs, though xterm tends to put the cursor in a slightly odd place if one invokes vi, resizes the window, edits for awhile, then quits vi. (A control-L "fixes" that issue, to some extent.)

Relatively crude, to be sure, but it's all I need for such apps as slrn.

2 Most X apps can connect remotely through the ssh tunnel, the most secure method of setting this up. (If an X app requires an extension such as OpenGL things get interesting.)

... remote$ echo $DISPLAY DISPLAY=localhost:10 remote$ xterm &

Voila, xterm window.

Mozilla and dillo also work.

3 Xnest might be an interesting method by which to set up a desktop -- to the local node it looks like another entirely new server, the remote node sees a window. Works reasonably well for a very simple setup over my DSL link -- though there's no real GUI to speak of beyond the X stipple and an xterm I fired up. gnome-session fires up the desktop, and I get most of the visual stuff except for OpenGL and sound.

... remote$ Xnest -display n& wait for the window remote$ DISPLAY=:n gnome-session &

Note that AFAIK at most one desktop can be exported in this fashion per user at a time. (This is not because of an inherent X limitation, but simply because Gnome has some issues when retrieving private data and-or coordinating itself. For example, if the user has two desktops running I'm wondering what nautilus will do when asked to open a window. This is more a management issue than a technical one.)

Note also that this is a *brand new session*. If the user has an existing session on a system console there's no way to interact with it that I know of apart from VNC. There might be an X extension however that allows it.

Desktop but all that does is allow a VNC client to log into the current desktop. Convenient, but it's not using X as such.

4 There's probably a method by which to do secure XDMCP over ssh but I'd have to research it.

5 There *should* be a method to force a gdm login prompt remotely, similar to the instructions above. I'd have to research that, too. New Login In A Nested Window.

6 I have no idea how to set up the rdesktop server on my XP box. I do see several services:

Remote Access Auto Connection Manager Remote Access Connection Manager Remote Desktop Help Session Manager

Starting them didn't do much; rdesktop still refuses to connect. Do I have to go through a Domain Controller? My brain hurts.

On Linux, rdesktop appears to use 3389 as a default port (found out by using strace). This is not in Cygwin'setc-services (though Cygwin probably doesn't care! :-) ) or in my Linux box'setc-services.

NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing started, but stopped immediately with a helpful little dialog:

The NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing Service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they have no work to do, for example, the Performance Logs and Alerts service.

OK

(ObHuh: Huh?)

I give up -- for now. VNC works well enough, bandwidth braindeadedness notwithstanding.

7 And yes, there's a Telnet service, thoughtfully provided by Microsoft.

-- It's still legal to go .sigless.