This is the mail archive of the cygwin-xfree mailing list for the Cygwin XFree86 project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: Using XWin.exe to connect to a linux X Server



In the third chapter of "Phil Betts", verse 37-53, it says,



jose isaias cabrera wrote on Monday, December 03, 2007 11:43 PM::

Just to complete this issue, I had to delete the account and recreate
it. The reason why was that I previously had an SPARC sunworkstion
with Gentoo on it, and I rsync-ed all of the files and directories
from that server.  I was running gnome on that server also, but
somehow the previous settings were getting picked up by the new
gnome, which was a newer version and it was kicking me out.  After
creating the new user with the same name I am able to login and do my
work.

thanks,

josé

I'm glad you've got it working, but just for the benefit of anyone picking up on this thread via the archives, unless you really *want* to run a Linux desktop in XWin, the advice to use XDMCP is wrong (or at least, it's not the best advice).

The recommended way to run client applications is documented in the
XWin user guide:
http://x.cygwin.com/docs/ug/using-remote-apps.html

Using ssh is secure, reliable and easy both on the network and the
remote box.

In contrast, XDMCP is woefully insecure, overkill for running
individual applications, and inefficient in terms of network resources
and the remote host's resources - all window manager operations are
transmitted over the network in addition to anything going on in the
client area of the windows.  If in doubt, watch the spike in network
activity when you drag a window under XDMCP.  Compare this with the
same action using ssh tunnelling.  At the same time, you can also
watch the spike in CPU activity on the remote box.

If you are running Gnome or KDE on the Linux box, you are running a
fairly resource heavy application.  There have been efforts lately to
reduce their footprint, but try getting 100 users connecting to your
Linux box, each using XDMCP and you'll soon notice the difference.

Using XDMCP to run display managers also goes against the spirit of X,
which is to have a single, local display and window-manager/desktop on
which you can run clients on many different hosts.  XDMCP was developed
to allow using X on the graphical equivalent of dumb-terminals.

Another "problem" with using XDMCP is that the remote X clients are,
as far as Windows is concerned, just one application - XWin.  You
cannot use alt-tab to cycle through your Windows and your Linux clients
at the same time.  If you connect to multiple remote hosts, each using
XDMCP, things can quickly become confusing.

Sorry if that all sounded a bit preachy - it wasn't meant to.  I only
want people to make informed decisions, not make the decisions for
them.

Preach away, my brother. :-) I am just kidding, of course.


This is great information and many folks, like myself, are looking for info like this one. Thanks. I did not know much of these.

On my case, I am the one of two people on that machine and sometimes, I go to different buildings and I need to connect from there. And, since I enjoy graphical interfaces than just the ssh xterm, I wanted to do this. :-) Thanks for the sermon. :-)

josé


-- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://x.cygwin.com/docs/ FAQ: http://x.cygwin.com/docs/faq/


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]