Sending X to Windows...

[TheOmegaCode]

I stumbled accross an interesting article on how to send X to Windows. I quickly came here and searched, but didn't find anything... Apparently there is software out for Windows (WinaXE) that will allow you to run a Windows based X server. So if you are like me, and have a Windows box and a *Nix box or two, you can install this software on Windows, and run the GUI's for both on the same monitor...

Here are a few screenshots of WinaXe:
Config options
*Nix kern config
Two start bars
Galeon on Windows

Link to the article
Link to WinaXe

 

[Need4Speed]

yep, and there are a ton more....

Exceed and Xmanager to name a couple.

You can also use Cygwin which is free.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Heh, living in ignorance is bliss untill you pull your head out of the sand. I'll have to check these other products out...

 

[adlep]

Interesting!
So, if I understand this correctly, it is a kind of linux "emulator", something like a Virtual PC for Mac...right?

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Originally posted by: adlep
Interesting!
So, if I understand this correctly, it is a kind of linux "emulator", something like a Virtual PC for Mac...right?

Not quite. You would have to have two boxes up and running, one Windows and one *Nix. Have a keyboard, mouse, monitor hooked up to the Windows machine, and you could tunnel X from your *Nix box over to your Win box via your network. So you would have both GUI's at the same time...

 

[adlep]

So it is a remote administration tool then, very fast version of PC anywhere, but much much better, because Unix/Linux is designed to be managed over the network.....

 

[adlep]

Would you be able to write the data to such a setup....

Here is a possible scenario..

There is a VPN designed for Windows, using SOHO VPN Linksys router, and SSH-Sentinel (VPN client).
So the clients can access the specific VPN enabled share... like a big arse 120 Gb hdd running NTFS, from Windows 2000/XP without any problems.
But suddenly there is a need to edit/use the data on Linux, because it has all of these neato programming functions available.... So
access the data using Windows 2000/XP, get the data, start up the WinaXe, and be able to transferr, use the data in Linux. Can it be done transparently, without using or setting up the Samba....?

Edit: Oudos for an article it may be just what I need!!!!!
The problem is with clients, the got used to Windows/ they are not that computer literate (strange because they are all sawy programmers), yet they need to use som functions Linux provides for them from time to time. With KDE installed already by default everything could be done "within Windows". This kinnd of transparency would be very useful..

 

[Need4Speed]

its not an emu at all. In order to really understand how it works, you have to understand how X-Windows really works.

In a nutshell, every linux box that runs X is running an X-Server and an X-Client. It just happens that more often than not you are logging in locally. This 'separation' allows the OS to export the display to another workstation that is running an X server. For all intense purposes its as if you were sitting in front of the machine that is exporting the display.

It is very handy for admin or even running an app that is not installed on the box that you are sitting at. When I worked at EDS, we used to setup development boxes in the lab with software that needed to be tested. Any user could log in and use it. This allowed us to keep a close eye on whats going, let the users try the software, and it didnt require us to install the packages on everyones Ultra box.

-p

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: adlep
Would you be able to write the data to such a setup....

Here is a possible scenario..

There is a VPN designed for Windows, using SOHO VPN Linksys router, and SSH-Sentinel (VPN client).
So the clients can access the specific VPN enabled share... like a big arse 120 Gb hdd running NTFS, from Windows 2000/XP without any problems.
But suddenly there is a need to edit/use the data on Linux, because it has all of these neato programming functions available.... So
access the data using Windows 2000/XP, get the data, start up the WinaXe, and be able to transferr, use the data in Linux. Can it be done transparently, without using or setting up the Samba....?

Not as far as I know, but I have been wrong...all it does is export the display, nothing else. very similiar to VNC, but a lot more ellegant. Some windows based x servers may let you cut and paste text between the two desktops.

 

[adlep]

Just finished reading the article,
Now that you have two machines hooked up via the network, you can also set up file sharing using Samba on Linux. Alternatively, WinaXe comes with a Windows-based NFS server as well, so you can take advantage of the speed NFS provides. And, of course, either machine can be configured as a gateway to the Internet through your cable or dialup connection (enable masquerading under Linux or Internet Connection Sharing under Windows). WinaXe also allows you to copy and paste between your two desktops.

So it actually might work for coping and pasting the data files....
Edit: <Windows based NFS server>? Can someone explain more?

 

[Need4Speed]

im not familiar with winaxe, but it appears from your snippet that it will also run a Network File System Server.

From the Linux Faq, this might clear some things up for you....

2.1. What is NFS?
The Network File System (NFS) was developed to allow machines to mount a disk partition on a remote machine as if it were on a local hard drive. This allows for fast, seamless sharing of files across a network.

It also gives the potential for unwanted people to access your hard drive over the network (and thereby possibly read your email and delete all your files as well as break into your system) if you set it up incorrectly. So please read the Security section of this document carefully if you intend to implement an NFS setup.

There are other systems that provide similar functionality to NFS. Samba (http://www.samba.org) provides file services to Windows clients. The Andrew File System from IBM (http://www.transarc.com/Product/EFS/AFS/index.html), recently open-sourced, provides a file sharing mechanism with some additional security and performance features. The Coda File System (http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/) is still in development as of this writing but is designed to work well with disconnected clients. Many of the features of the Andrew and Coda file systems are slated for inclusion in the next version of NFS (Version 4) (http://www.nfsv4.org). The advantage of NFS today is that it is mature, standard, well understood, and supported robustly across a variety of platforms.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

adminning? what kind of an admin uses X apps? (to admin)

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
adminning? what kind of an admin uses X apps? (to admin)

A lazy one like my boss... Why this "software" peaked my interest...

 

[ScottMac]

I use X-WIN32. Great (!) package, works with everything I ever tried it with, and they include an F-Secure SSH license so you can start an SSH term session direct from the X package.

It's not free, but it's well worth the price, IMHO.

FWIW

Scott

 

[BML]

Hi i have Downloaded about 4 of these programs and cant seem to get any of them to display on my PC.
For one im at work and my RedHat7.3 machine is at home one a broadband connection. But i dont think that would matter because it runs on tcp/ip, I figured it might be alittle slow. Second my Windows pc is at work be hind a firewall. Do these products do everythind through telnet ports or do i need to open up some other ports on my work firewall. Any help would be nice.

This is my error on almost all the programs.

Warning: This program is an suid-root program or is being run by the root user.
The full text of the error or warning message cannot be safely formatted
in this environment. You may get a more descriptive message by running the
program as a non-root user or by removing the suid bit on the executable.
/usr/bin/X11/xterm Xt error: Can't open display: %s
[root@x1-6-00-80-ad-00-1e-4c root]#

 

[Need4Speed]

The best advice i have is to READ the docs that came with the software.

That being said,
I generally run mine through SSH on port 22. So that means that your LAN will have to have access to port 22 across the internet. Also, You have to set GDM or KDM to listen for the XDMCP connection.

 

[MGMorden]

You don't need two machines installed. I personally run Xwin32 b/c I find it to be the best of the available packages. I use it to bring up Solaris windows from the university lab on my Windows machine (or Linux machine. it runs behind the windows machine on a subnet, but x uses port 6000 + the display number, so by routing port 6000 to my linux machine and 6001 to the windows machine I can bring up windows on either machine by stating the same ip address but with different display numbers). HOWEVER, I also do have Cygwin installed on the windows side which includes XFree86 (it'll work fine with X-win32 running on the local machine though). With cygwin you get a lot of initial libraries that you can install but most importantly gcc and bash. It sets up a "fake" Unix environment for the programs to see but everything still gets compiled for Windows (so no performance hit whatsoever). Since these are in place you can compile almost all Linux software for the Windows platform (it will not run Linux binaries though, so it's not at all an emulator). With this environment + an X11 server (XFree86 is included for free, but it won't run in rootless mode so I use Xwin32) you can use Unix apps on your Windows machine just as if they were windows apps.

 

[MGMorden]

Originally posted by: Need4Speed
The best advice i have is to READ the docs that came with the software.

That being said,
I generally run mine through SSH on port 22. So that means that your LAN will have to have access to port 22 across the internet. Also, You have to set GDM or KDM to listen for the XDMCP connection.

Not necessarily. If you can SSH into a command prompt you can just set the DISPLAY varible to your ip addres. Example:

export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0

(just in ya'll don't know that's a generic local machine ip address but you can change it to anything valid). Then when you run any X11 program it will open on the target machine with no need to use XDMCP. I strongly prefer to use this in combination with rootless mode on my windows machine (Linux machine is essentially rootless anyways since the whole system is X11 instead of it being an addon). By doing this you can use apps on an individual basis and they seem much more integrated into your workspace as opposed to basically having two unrelated desktops on the same machine.

 

[MGMorden]

Originally posted by: BML
Hi i have Downloaded about 4 of these programs and cant seem to get any of them to display on my PC.
For one im at work and my RedHat7.3 machine is at home one a broadband connection. But i dont think that would matter because it runs on tcp/ip, I figured it might be alittle slow. Second my Windows pc is at work be hind a firewall. Do these products do everythind through telnet ports or do i need to open up some other ports on my work firewall. Any help would be nice.

This is my error on almost all the programs.

Warning: This program is an suid-root program or is being run by the root user.
The full text of the error or warning message cannot be safely formatted
in this environment. You may get a more descriptive message by running the
program as a non-root user or by removing the suid bit on the executable.
/usr/bin/X11/xterm Xt error: Can't open display: %s
[root@x1-6-00-80-ad-00-1e-4c root]#

See my previous post on how to set the target ip address. Needless to say you probably need to open up port 6000 on your firewall.

 

[BML]

Not to start anything, but I did read most of the docs. But I am fairly new to linux so I dont really understand it that well, so i figured id post this little question in hope for a response thats was helpful. Wich I got , not all of us pick up things as easy as others so sometimes a quick answer helps. If I had a dollar for every linux pro who told me to read the docs, Id be rich. Thanx for the answer to my problem MGMorden.

As for the read the docs post, Thanx for nothing.

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: BML
Not to start anything, but I did read most of the docs. But I am fairly new to linux so I dont really understand it that well, so i figured id post this little question in hope for a response thats was helpful. Wich I got , not all of us pick up things as easy as others so sometimes a quick answer helps. If I had a dollar for every linux pro who told me to read the docs, Id be rich. Thanx for the answer to my problem MGMorden.

As for the read the docs post, Thanx for nothing.

First, well you're quite welcome...and if you re-read my post I did provide a solution, one of many. Also, my recommendation to read the docs was sincere, you my friend need to cool those jets.

Second, maybe you should take the advise of these 'linux pros' and start with the docs. All too often these questions are answered word for word in the docs or in the support section of the respective website.

Thirdly, I be no means am a Linux Pro. But I learned by reading the docs and using Google to help me out. Anyone can come here and be spoon fed the answers. If that is what you consider learning linux, then be all means continue and I wish you the best of luck.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Well, now that that's been taken care of, back to sending X to Windows BML do you get any error messages? If you tried 4 different programs, it's more than likely a problem with your configurations and not the software. Try not to attack the problem by throwing more programs at it. I know this doesn't work frome experience

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: MGMorden

Originally posted by: Need4Speed
The best advice i have is to READ the docs that came with the software.

That being said,
I generally run mine through SSH on port 22. So that means that your LAN will have to have access to port 22 across the internet. Also, You have to set GDM or KDM to listen for the XDMCP connection.

Not necessarily. If you can SSH into a command prompt you can just set the DISPLAY varible to your ip addres. Example:

export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0

(just in ya'll don't know that's a generic local machine ip address but you can change it to anything valid). Then when you run any X11 program it will open on the target machine with no need to use XDMCP. I strongly prefer to use this in combination with rootless mode on my windows machine (Linux machine is essentially rootless anyways since the whole system is X11 instead of it being an addon). By doing this you can use apps on an individual basis and they seem much more integrated into your workspace as opposed to basically having two unrelated desktops on the same machine.

yes, you're right. the XDMCP setting is not necessary at all. You can, as you said SSH into linux and then export the display to the windows box.

I prefer when I do use the gui to use XDMCP because as you said it gives you the entire desktop.

For someone that is just starting out on linux I would not recommend cygwin as it often is missing certain libraries during install. This depends on which mirror you download it from.

From my experience Xmanager is one of the easiest to use. All you have to do is make sure that you can SSH into the linux box from the windows box. Once that is taken care of you can run the 'Xstart' program that comes with xmanager. this will give you an xterm window on the windows box that you can launch apps from the command line from. the gui for that app will be on the windows desktop then.

The other option as I mentioned earlier is to port the entire linux desktop to windows. essentially you'll have one desktop laying on top of the other. This will require that that you edit you gdm.conf file (if using gdm) and set XDMCP Enable=1.

Thats all there is to it.

If you're using KDM, you'll need to edit the /etc/X11/xdm/kdmrc file (I'm assuming a RH distro here) and set XDMCP Enable=1.

 

[BML]

My problem was fixed when MGMorden posted his reply.

Thanx for the help.

 

[BML]

Need4Speed

If you feel im not putting enough effort into finding the answers for my problems,
then just ignore my post and go on with reading your faqs. As I said before some of us dont catch on as fast and some of us dont have as much time as others. But there are people here that do like to help people like me and dont follow your LINUX HELP BIBLE.
Thats all I have to say sorry I cant write a book like you but then again I dont really care.
Thanx again for the help guys.