I have worked with Exceed from Hummingbird before. Nice software, but very expensive. In typical fashion I ran a Google search to find a free solution. The first hit was for Cygwin/X. After studying their site, it decided it should satisfy our needs.
As is often the case with Linux related solutions, documentation is rarely complete and difficult to find. Because I was doing this for work, I documented the process for the desktop support guys. The installation wasn't too terribly difficult and the end result is very usable. What made this installation more difficult was configuring it to run securly via X11 forwarding AND the requirement to disable the standard X11 ports.
If you find yourself traveling down this same road, you might find this document helpful. If you don't find it helpful, just remember that it didn't cost you anything!
| 1. | Run or download Cygwin/X installer from http://cygwin.com/setup.exe |
| 2. | Select "Install from Internet". |
| 3. | Make the Root directory "c:\cygwin" |
| 4. | Choose either Install for "All Users" or "Just Me" |
| 5. | Default Text File Type should be "Unix / binary" |
| 6. | Select a download mirror site from the list. Keep in mind that the official Cygwin sites are usually very slow. |
| 7. |
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| *Note: If the installer loses connection with the mirror site you selected, it will return you to the mirror site selection window. Simply select a different mirror site. The packages you selected previously will remain selected. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8. | To test connectivity to a remote Linux server, click on the Cygwin icon (desktop or Start | All Programs | Cygwin | Cygwin Bash Shell). The first time you run it, you will see some messages about copying files. This is normal. At the command prompt ($) type: This command will not work after you have restricted direct connectivity to X11 on the server later on in this document. The “-clipboard” option allows you to cut and paste between your Windows computer and the Linux server. |
| 9. | When you log out, the X window will return to the login screen. To close the connection to the remote Linux box, you can either click on the “X” button in the top right corner or hit [Ctrl] + [C] in the Cygwin Bash Shell window. |
| 10. | Download the PuTTY SSH client from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html Place it some where convenient, as you will have to start it after you start Cygwin/X. |
| *Note: SecureCRT will also work with the setting mention above, but PuTTY is free. I recommend PuTTY unless you need the advanced feature of SecureCRT. |
| 11. | Enable X11 forwarding in PuTTY Navigate to the X11 page and: a. Place a check in the box next to “Enable X11 forwarding” b. Click the radio button next to “MIT-Magic-Cookie-1” |
| 12. | To save your settings: a. Click on Session in the left category window b. Enter a name for your session in the Saved Sessions box c. Click on the “Save” button on the right |
| 1. | Verify that OpenSSH is installed and working correctly on the remote Linux server. |
| 2. | Verify /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config
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| 3. | Edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess
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| 4. | Edit /etc/X11/xdm/kdmrc - if present
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| 5. | Edit /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf – if present
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| 1. | Start Cygwin |
| 2. | In the Cygwin window type: X –clipboard |
| 3. | Start PuTTY and connect to remote Linux server |
| 4. | In PuTTY terminal window type: startkde The KDE desktop will start in the X Window that was created in step 2. Because you entered your username and password in using PuTTy, you will not be asked for a username and password when the KDE desktop appears. This is fine. The Red Hat server already authenticated you. |