Opening desktop via X Window

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 12:10, Ian Puleston wrote:

> I've just been experimenting with using the CygWin X-Window server on a
> Windows PC at work to connect to my Linux PC at home. Works great, but
> something funny just happened. I had been hoping to open a window with the
> whole GNOME desktop, but couldn't find anything in the documentation on how
> to do that, so I'd resigned myself to running individual apps in individual
> X-windows. But then I tried running Nautilus. In an XTerm window I typed
> "nautilus &" and a Nautilus file browser window opened up, but then a minute
> or so later a 2nd X-Window opened up displaying the desktop. Psychic Linux!
> 
> So, is there a command that will run a desktop directly rather than going
> via that path?

Run gdmconfig on the Linux side, enable XDMCP, and restart X (I think
logging out at the console is enough).

Then on the PC, from a cygwin bash prompt type:
Xwin -query your_server_name_or_IP.
You should get the graphic login prompt, followed by the complete
desktop within what is a single MS-windows window.  If you are running
XP, you have to drop the firewall on it to allow the connection through.
And since you mention doing this over the internet from work, this may
not be the best approach, although it works well on a LAN.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com