[BozemanLUG] Linux to Linux Remote Desktop

[Scott Dowdle]

Rob,

----- Original Message -----
> I will take a look at it then. Both machines are
> running MATE so the fit then would be perfect. I did try NoMachine
> but it appears that even though it uses SSH, you need the NoMachine
> service running on the other end as well. Just seems like an extra
> layer that I shouldn't need if I have Open SSH Server installed.
> Anyhow, thank you for the info.

Just a little more background info.

x2go is based on a fork of NoMachine's NX3 libraries... and NX3/x2go is basically an optimized X11 protocol for remote access.  NoMachine with version 4 created a completely new protocol that is not FOSS and supports mutliple server side OSes whereas NX3/x2go is X11-only.

x2go requires both client and server packages.  Fedora has both in the stock repos, and EPEL has both for EL6 and EL7.  On Debian (and Ubuntu), they package the client but you have to get the server package from the x2go addon repo (see x2go.org for instructions).  Why Debian doesn't package x2go server, I'm not sure.

If you just want to do an occasional X11 application over your LAN... you can just turn on X11 tunneling in ssh, login to the remote system, and run the desired application... and it should pop up on your display.  The openssh -X flag is what you use.  If that doesn't work out-of-the-box then check the sshd config on the remote system to see if they have X11 tunneling turned of.  I think some distros might turn it off by default.

You can actually run a desktop environment via ssh X11 tunneling and over a fast LAN it is probably usuable.  Over a WAN... it can be noticeably slow.

If you are trying to "share" an existing desktop, I'm not aware of a way to do it via ssh X11 tunneling but I haven't really looked into it.

VNC is also a popular option... for both a single-user remote desktop and a shared desktop... but it has quite a bit of setup involved (client, server packages... new ports, etc) and the performance is somewhere between ssh X11 tunneling and x2go... but VNC is multi-platform.

You didn't really say what you wanted to do (single application?  single-user desktop?  shared desktop?) so I covered a few bases.  If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
(406)388-0827 [home]
(406)994-3931 [work]