BOF Posted February 1, 2016 Moderator Share Posted February 1, 2016 Can anyone recommend an X Window manager for Windows 7 that will run GUIs from a Linux/UNIX server? I used to use Reflection X and then Exceed on older windows versions but they don't work on this one. I also need to be able to reduce the colour depth to potentially 8-bit. Meaning something like XMing is no use as it is too light with not enough of its own features. I've looked at XManager but that doesn't seem to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 1, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 1, 2016 Cygwin. Better still, install virtualbox and run a full linux distro to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 2, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted February 2, 2016 I've installed that now, aswell as the Cygwin/X package for X window management but it has effectively just given me another PuTTY-esque terminal for windows that happens to look and behave a bit linuxy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 2, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 2, 2016 58 minutes ago, BOF said: I've installed that now, aswell as the Cygwin/X package for X window management but it has effectively just given me another PuTTY-esque terminal for windows that happens to look and behave a bit linuxy. What's PuTTY? You now have an X server running, isn't that what you asked for? You're going to have to explain a little more.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 2, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted February 2, 2016 Basically it's not spawning GUIs yet. It is running as can be seen below. PuTTY is just another ssh and telnet client like the Cygwin64 terminal. I have the X server running in 'Multiple windows' -> 'Start no client' -> Clipboard & Native OpenGL both checked with no additional parameters specified. I have my correct IP address exported as $DISPLAY in the linux session and nothing is coming up whether I try within a PuTTY session or a Cygwin session. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 2, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 2, 2016 $DISPLAY needs a screen number too. I'm sure there'll be a howto somewhere. It was easy last time I used it, but it's years since anything made me use windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 2, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted February 2, 2016 Yep it's DISPLAY=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:0.0 Really frustrating as it shouldn't be this difficult. If I could go back to Reflection X or Exceed I wouldn't be having this problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegis Posted February 2, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted February 2, 2016 Just a quick thought, The nix shell is not CSH is it? Because I think you need to use setenv instead of display then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 2, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 2, 2016 1 hour ago, Tegis said: Just a quick thought, The nix shell is not CSH is it? Because I think you need to use setenv instead of display then. erm, what? 2 hours ago, BOF said: Yep it's DISPLAY=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:0.0 Really frustrating as it shouldn't be this difficult. If I could go back to Reflection X or Exceed I wouldn't be having this problem Has the xserver actually started? How are you connecting to the remote server? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegis Posted February 2, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted February 2, 2016 7 minutes ago, limpid said: erm, what? Sorry, typo. I meant setenv instead of export, It was a long ass time ago on a solaris box setenv DISPLAY hostname:0.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 2, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 2, 2016 csh on Solaris? Bad times. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 3, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted February 3, 2016 The X Server has started, as the icon in the taskbar pic above shows, and I connect to the server with ssh on port 22. I don't know if cygwin needs to set X11 forwarding to be explicitly switched on or whether it's on by default. I've turned it on in PuTTY anyway. Using the XMing X server I've managed to get it to the point where the window begins to spawn, but quickly dies as the colour depth is too high. I can't get to that point with cygwin/x yet though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 3, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 3, 2016 Are you passing -X to the ssh command? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 3, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted February 3, 2016 I did that time on the cygwin terminal, but no change. I assume that must be the X11 Forwarding checkbox that's available on PuTTY (which has worked in the past). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 3, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 3, 2016 I don't know putty, but I assume so. From an xterm on the box running cygwin: ssh -X user@server If the server is set up correctly typing echo $DISPLAY after connecting will display something like "1.2.3.4:0.0" or "pcname:0.0". If you need to set this then something is wrong at the server end, this should be automatic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 3, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted February 3, 2016 I love threads like this. They may as well be in French for me 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegis Posted February 3, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted February 3, 2016 (edited) 4 hours ago, BOF said: I did that time on the cygwin terminal, but no change. I assume that must be the X11 Forwarding checkbox that's available on PuTTY (which has worked in the past). I did a quick test with VcXsrv I put "localhost:0" in your example above. Presto it worked Edited February 3, 2016 by Tegis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 4, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted February 4, 2016 Thanks Tegis. Hasn't worked for me. There must be something else going on. I have a wired connection, a wireless connection and a VPN. No combination of any of those IP addresses exported as the DISPLAY on the remote server, be it linux or UNIX, are working and neither XMing, Cygwin or VcXsrv managing the X launch on my Win7 box will so much as bring up the xclock. I've also temporarily added the localhost to my hosts file even though that's taken care of by the system DNS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted February 4, 2016 Administrator Share Posted February 4, 2016 So the problem is the server. Have you run "xhost +" on the server as the user you are connecting as? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 4, 2016 Author Moderator Share Posted February 4, 2016 I've never had to run that before on those servers and they have spawned windows on other windows machines. I've tried to run it anyway and got this xhost + Xlib: connection to "10.44.135.82:0.0" refused by server Xlib: No protocol specified xhost: unable to open display "10.44.135.82:0.0" Also ... xclock Xlib: connection to "10.44.135.82:0.0" refused by server Xlib: No protocol specified Error: Can't open display: 10.44.135.82:0.0 Someone else running xclock on the same server is having success. I'm wondering as this is a fresh install, there may be security and/or blocking going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts