On Thu, 26 Jul 2007, Mike Dwiggins wrote:
I think I have it figured out. Only took so long to reply because I am on
the road and wound up in a one-horse town in a Motel with no Internet.
Thanks to All who replied.
A number of people mentioned ways to get X on Win32. Where I work, Win32
is the "departmental standard", so those of us who use unix/linux depend
on ssh tunneling. Two X servers were mentioned: Cygwin (free) and
Hummingbird (non-free). I have used both, but this month I prefer Xming,
which is based on current Xorg sources. There are also systems (VNC) that
use other protocols to copy a local virtual display to the remote system.
All these X servers have subtle differences in the available fonts and
quirky parts of X (for example, black and white are supposed to be
always available in indexed (8-bit) display modes, but some apps redefine
them to enable "reverse" video, which can give white on white or black on
black if the server ignores the change). The virtual server approaches
give you access to the fonts on the host, but you have to install the
software on the remote system.
Hummingbird is quite compatible with legacy X servers from Sun and SGI,
while Xming has default fonts and some obscure behaviours (handling black
and white on indexed color) that follow current linux X servers. Cygwin
might be a better match for older linux versions using Xfree86. It is
worth noting that Xming also supporting SGI's gr_osview (OpenGL) which is
extra cost from Hummingbird.
Finally, there is also the option of running linux and X via a "live" CD
such as Knoppix or in a VM hosted on the Windows box. You loose the
ability to have remote sessions displayed in windows alongside native
Windows apps (e.g, cut/paste text), but you can have local versions of
tools that may not be installed on the remote machine, even a small
"clone" of the remote system for tests you can't do on the production
system.
--
George N. White III <aa056@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
