How do I get a Remote Desktop for Linux (XDMCP, VNC)

Question

I do this all the time using VNC and it is very easy, but I am curious about a few things like XDMCP. As I understand it, this is a way of creating the entire desktop on a remote X-Server which seems fairly elegant.

Several years ago, I worked on a Solaris server and multiple developers had X-Servers running in Windows and we were able to access a full remote X-desktop. All my efforts so far in X based systems seem to indicate that only one instance, remote or local, of the desktop can be loaded, so I guess this Solaris thing was an actual application that "emulated" a desktop, but who knows....

Any input ?

Answer 1

From Windows I've found the best way to do this is using the Xwin command in cygwin.

Steps:

Install Cygwin, making sure to install X11. (Do this by scrolling to the bottom of the list on the "select packages" screen and click on the word "default" to the right of "X11". Give it a second or two and it will change to "install".)

Then, just run the Xwin command like this:

Xwin -query your.unix.system.name

You'll get a full-screen login window from you unix box. That's it!

Btw, sometimes firewalls get in the way of the UDP protocol for XDMCP. If that happens, look up the port numbers (one UDP outgoing, and one TCP incomming) and unblock them. Other xdmcp troubleshooting tips here.

Answer 2

NX will allow you to use a complete remote desktop environment locally, and most Linux distros already have the server available.

Answer 3

As an alternative to full cygwin install you might want to look at Xming. It is quite a bit lighter and should provide the same functionality.