Aw yeah.

Wait, how do you know if they're sisters again? ;0

Thanks for mentioing PuTTY. I've been searching for a decent piece of cheap/freeware that will X from a windows desktop for a while now. I've found loads of software but nothing free or cheap enough that will do what I need. If PuTTY will do what it says on the website then it looks perfect.

The problem I have is that I work in a test lab using rack mounted Sun servers running Solaris (and some Compaqs running Linux, also rack mounted). I have to do anything from 1 to 10 installs of Oracle RDBMS which can only be done via an X-term. I have to run W2K on my desktop cos a lot of the standard corporate software isn't available in a Linux version so my choice is either get a Windows X-term product or stand infront of the racks. As a stop gap measure I've been using an old P200 running Mandrake Linux as an X-term but there's been rumblings about disposing of old kit and it looks like that's going to get disposed of and I'm not going to be allowed to put Mandrake on any of the newer boxes.

Unfortunately I'm out of the office until next week at the earliest so I can't test it till then.

PuTTY isn't an X Server; it only forwards X connections.

You'll need Reflection (commercial) or Cygwin's XFree86 (Free) also.

Have I got it backwards then? I thought the X Server process was on the box you were accessing, that's the way it was explained to me by one of the UNIX guys at my previous employer. I was given to understand that trying to access a Solaris box from a W2K box, the X Server process would be running on the Solaris box and the xterm process on the W2K box.

I've used Reflection before (about 4 years ago) but only as a telnet/FTP product to connect to VMS (VAX and Alpha boxes) and AIX (RS6000). Back then everything I needed to do was do able from the command line in a text based terminal, to be honest I'm still happiest with a text based terminal session for most things. It's only recently that the products I use have gone X only.

I've not come accross Cygwin before, I'm checking out the site now. It looks like I'm gonna have to do some reading and testing when i get back to work next week.

Thanks for your help.

This is always a fun one to explain. I always fail. I'll try anyway! ;)

The applications you run from the other box are X clients. This includes xterm, panel, twm, Sawmill etc. They connect to a display on an X server. In 'conventional' use, the X server will be running on the same host as the clients, and the windows the client creates will appear on a local display. However, when you're doing it networkedly, you run an X server on your Windows* machine, and have the X clients on the unix box you are connected to connect to the X server on there. The windows then appear on your Windows desktop, or if your X server can't be rootless, in one big window in a similar way to VNC displays stuff.

Descriptions in one big paragraph always suck. Oh well.

No probs. I've long ago found out that it's better to be told twice. Your explanation made things clearer for me. Thanks.

Hmmmm, in bed at 4am and up again at 7am. Takes me back to my student days (1989-1993, Joint Honours Biochemistry and Electronics with Foundation year and subsids on Computer Science, Engineering Math and Economics (kinda like having 2 majors and 3 minors)). Although if it went on hours spent on things then I majored in BSD Empire and minored in LPMUD.

Thanks. That makes sense.

The guy who explained it to me before was supposed to be a total UNIX guru guy. Everything he said was taken as being like it was being brought from some mountain engraved on tablets of stone. Everything else he told me has checked out as correct so maybe it was just this he got confused on, or perhaps I didn't understand his explanation.

Just read the Cygwin FAQ, the way X had been explained to me was backwards.

Whoever explained X to you assumed X uses the typical client/server model, whereas X actually reverses it.

...From there I telnet to my laptop...

Do you really telnet or do you actually SSH? It seems to me that a university network would be a prime place to find people with enough skill and motivation to sniff for passwords going by (although I could be completely wrong about this). If there are any win 9x computers along your route home, it would be even easier since then the sniffer wouldn't even need administrator level access...


...and fire up emacs...

By the way, are you back to using emacs now? I remember reading in your journal a few months ago that you were starting to switch over to vim... Did you change your mind?

heh, can't believe i said telnet ... no, i never telnet. i don't even run it. but it'd be secure: if i ssh from school to home, then from home to my laptop, i got a switch in my bedroom, so my roommates couldn't sniff it unless they arp flooded my switch to force it into broadcast (hub) mode, but they don't know.

emacs: always when possible. i only use vi when i have to.

sniffing: enough skill and motivation? *grins* yeah, i know some people **cough** that do that. :P

Okay, I see. At first it sounded like you were telnetting directly from the school computer to your laptop at home which didn't sound like a great idea.

Emacs: Are you using the new version that just came out (21 I think)? If so, how much has it changed since version 20? I used to use emacs all the time, but I switched over to vim about six months ago and I really like it a lot. I dislike traditional vi clones, but vim (when not set in vi compatibility mode) is really cool.