Good X server for Windows?

[MDesigner]

I'm looking for a good X server for Windows, so I could telnet to a Linux box, set the DISPLAY to my Windows machine, and run whatever.

Please recommend both commercial and freeware/open source if possible. Thanks!

[lagitus]

Cygwin has one. Google for it.

[bwilliam79]

I am doing this exact thing on my machine using putty and cygwin. All you have to do is install cygwin and the Xorg X server, run the startxwin.bat file from c:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin, turn on X forwarding in putty, then any graphical app you run off your client will be piped to your local machine. If you have trouble setting this up, let me know.

[bwilliam79]

FYI - The X server is an option when you are installing cygwin.

[ecks]

There's XWin32 (http://www.starnet.com/) and Exceed (http://www.hummingbird.com/products/nc/exceed/index.html?cks=y).
I've used XWin32 and it worked fine with putty, don't know about Exceed. I think both of them are trial versions though. Goto putty Doc (http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.54/htmldoc/Chapter3.html#3.4) for more help with configuring it with putty.
Good luck.

[dr_te_z]

At work I use exceed. At home I use cygwin.
I always contact the remote *nix machines using the XDCMP protocol to get a graphical login. I like cygwin the best. Simple & sufficient.

[XiaoKJ]

do not telnet -- ssh

telnet is very risky.

[gamblor01]

With Cygwin, assuming you have all the proper packages installed, you can ssh in with a -x option and it should automatically export the desktop. So if I'm on a WinXP box and I ssh to a Linux system called linbox, in theory if everything is setup I'd just do the following:


ssh -X user@linbox



Once you've typed in the password, try running kcalc or something and it should work. It's really easy once you've got it working...but getting it setup isn't always so simple.

[micro]

If you want just the X Server and not an entire Unix system on top of Windows, I wouldn't recommend Cygwin.

The X Server that I like most is X Manager.

It is commercial and I don't know if it is still up.

I liked it for 3 reasons:
1) It is very simple to understand.
2) The first method is to bring up an xterm to the local X Server. The $DISPLAY variable is already set properly.
Then, you just issue startkde or whatever.
2) The second method is to connect to a specific Desktop Manager (xdm, kdm, gdm) or browse in the network to find for one.

It is very configurable.
It can work smart. In the first method of connection, if a Windows manager is not active, it uses the built-in (if instructed to do so). So, you can just type mozilla and it is up and movable. If you call a WM, then X Manager shuts down the built-in and starts using the remote.

It can work transparently and you can see both desktops (the Windows one and the remote Unix one).

This way, I was able to use Kde and Windows panel in the same time. Some keys are reserved locally, so if you press ctrl+esc, the Windows start menu and panel become active.

And of course it can work full screen, windowed etc.etc.

You don't have to crack it. It just asks for a code and it is not self-uninstalling after a period of time.

I used it for quite long before my total transition to Linux in all computers in my home and I always install it in my friends notebooks in order to visit and enjoy my network completely.