Linux newbie question: problems using XDMCP to remotely start KDE session from a Windows PC

[Jason M. Dolinger]

Hi all,

I am brand new to the Unix/Linux world, just started taking the 
plunge.  First of all, please forgive me if this is not the 
appropriate place to ask such questions...

I just installed Fedora Core 4 and have been playing around with it 
for several weeks now.  I also have a Windows XP machine connected to 
the same router as the linux box.  I'd love to be able to do 
everything from one machine, therefore setting up an X server on the 
windows box to run X programs and have them appear on my windows 
machine.  I downloaded Xwin32 and have been able to do what I just described.

However I'd like to take it to the next level and be able to popup 
the entire KDE desktop on my windows machine.  I believe that the way 
to do this is using XDMCP, and then Xwin32 is only remotely managing 
the KDE session running on the Linux PC.  However, upon trying to use 
the XDMCP option in Xwin32 to connect, my entire Windows desktop 
turns grey, with a slightly linux-y looking mouse pointer, but 
nothing ever happens.  I need to Alt-tab to get back to any of my 
other windows programs.  Has anyone ever seen this before?

A few things:

1.  In the KDE Login settings (I believe that runs gdmsetup), I've 
checked  "Enable XDMCP" on the XDMCP tab (I'm using the SAMS Red Hat 
Fedora 4 book and it led me to believe that this is all I would need to do).
2.  I've edited /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config to comment out the line 
"DisplayManager.requestPort:   0".  I added a "!" in front of that line.
3.  I've edited /etc/X11/xdm/kdmrc to change the line "Enable=false" 
to "Enable=true" under [Xdmcp].  Both this step and step 2 I found 
from various internet postings and thought I'd give them a try.
4.  On my network, my windows PC gets a dynamic IP address from my 
router and I configured the Linux machine to use a static IP.  I've 
set up Xwin32 to connect to Linux using it's IPaddress, and the 
Xwin32 configuration specifies the IP address of the windows machine 
to route its display back to.  Both machines can only ping each other 
using their IPaddresses, not hostnames (I've nothing set up in the 
host files for either machine).

Between each configuration steps 1, 2 and 3, I restarted the Linux 
machine (the postings mentioned restarting just X, but I didn't know 
how to do that.  They actually mentioned restarting the X server, but 
that didn't make sense to me.  Isn't the Xserver what is running on 
my Windows PC, but I made the changes on the Linux side?  I thought I 
would need to restart whatever is running on the Linux side, is that 
referred to as the X client?).

Well, that's really it.  Have I missed a magic step somewhere along 
the line, or is the problem more complicated, related to my 
hardware/firewall setup perhaps (I tried this while disabling my 
Windows firewall, no luck)?  At this point, I'm not really sure if 
the issue is the Linux configuration, my network or the X server 
configuration on my PC.  Maybe a different X server (CygwinX 
perhaps?) would give me better luck?

Sorry if this is such a basic thing, I really am just barely starting 
to figure this thing out.

Thanks, any help would be appreciated!

Jason