Running X w/o X (Oracle client install)
Tim Chase
blinux.list at thechases.com
Thu Sep 9 12:55:16 UTC 2004
If you have a couple options for satisfying a need for X.
1) If you want to send things remotely to the machine from which
you're SSH'ing, you need an X server running on your local
machine. There have been steps taken by the Cygwin folks to get
this working in Windows, but I've not tried it. Last time I
tried this, I used a non-free package by the name of Reflection
to provide an X server under Windows.
2) If you really need to connect to an X server, but don't have a
"real" X server, you can configure X to use the "Xvfb" driver
which creates a virtual frame-buffer. This would be, as your
"subject" line suggests "X without X." From the man page:
"Xvfb is an X server that can run on machines with no display
hardware and no physical input devices. It emulates a dumb
framebuffer using virtual memory."
I recommend against simply finding some random machine proving an
X server over which you have no control and just setting your
DISPLAY variable to point at it, as things may get displayed to
that machine without notifying you. Or there may be security
concerns if it provides some sort of administrative dialog that
comes to the person sitting in front of the X display rather than
coming to you.
3) You might be able to get away without X at all, if the Oracle
program/install in question has some obscure option (like Vim
does) to forego detection of X. You'd have to check out their
documentation on this to see if they provide such an option.
4) Lastly, if getting "Xvfb" set up is a problem, but your
install automatically can configure a regular X setup, just let
it start, and then use ctrl+alt+F1 to get back to your first
virtual console. X will run in the background, making Oracle
happy, (and slupring down a few system resources, but it
shouldn't be too bad) yet you have your regular console interface
at VC 1 through whatever.
Hope this helps,
-tim
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