Semi-OT: VNC Alternatives.

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, 2005-11-03 at 08:54, Gilboa Davara wrote:
> I'm trying to ease the pain of using Linux.
> If I choose the tunnel-over-SSH with X-forwarding option, the first
> Windows they'll see will be an empty terminal window instead of looking
> at a full-blow-Windows-like UI.
> I really don't want to scare them off.

There are several choices, the nicest at the moment probably being
freenx on the Linux side and the windows nxclient which is a free
download from http://www.nomachine.com.  Be sure you find all of
the setup instructions because at least some of the freenx packages
generate a unique key for the initial login that must be installed
on each client (it uses ssh as the nx user for the initial connection
to authenticate as the actual user).   Basically this is a proxy
X connection but faster and more efficient than VNC.

You can also run Cygwin X on the windows side, and either run the
full Linux desktop from Linux by enabling XDCMP (run gdmconfig) and
starting X with 'Xwin -query server', or you can run individual apps
in what look like individual MS windows by using (from a cygwin bash
shell):
export DISPLAY=:0
Xwin -multiwindow &
ssh -Y user at server
  log in, start program by typing its name
  window should open on local desktop

If you set up passwordless ssh, you can script some or all of this, but
it is only worth doing if you want the users to run some specific apps
with the rest of the system hidden.  You can also use putty on the
windows side instead of cygwin ssh if you set up X forwarding in the
'tunnels' dialog.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com