When I started working with Linux for my current projects, it was on a severly underpowered box (a Celeron 400MHz, 128MB RAM, 3GB HDD). Thus, running Gnome and so on, in addition to my development projects, wasn't a really good idea.

After a bit, I got tired of waiting forever to compile, so I got a 2.something GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of RAM, nice disks, etc. Since I was going to do a bit more than I had done before, I decided to install and use Gnome, as well as RedHat's cute little GUI tools to configure stuff.

Soon, I was using X/Gnome a good portion of my time (X-Chat seems to be the best free IRC client on any platform, and I use IRC for work on Asterisk a lot). Also, it can be nicer to use Gnome than have a bunch of SSH sessions open at once. So, at first, I tried out VNC. I didn't like it. I wanted to get a logon screen, and I was having trouble getting VNC to do that. Also, the RealVNC client I had for Windows seemed pretty crappy.

Then I discovered GDM and XDMCP. Now I have integration like this:



Here are the steps to get XDMCP/GDM working rather nicely with Windows (at least on RedHat systems):

1. Edit /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf. In the [xdmcp] section, set Enable=true. That'll allow you to connect remotely using xwin or other XDMCP clients. Next, in the [daemon] section, set KillInitClients=false. This allows xwin's clipboard integration to work correctly.

2. Next, install cygwin, ensuring to install XWin. This has the tools we need to make the connection.

3. Create a shell file inside cygwin to start xwin. I called mine “startsungx“ (sung is my Linux machine's name). Here's my file:
    xwin -query sung -notrayicon -clipboard -rootless -nowinkill -keyhook -xkbmodel microsoft

Do xwin -? to find out about those options. The interesting ones are -rootless, which prevents a “root“ window from appearing (which will manifest itself as an ugly background).
-nowinkill stops the Windows Alt-F4 from killing xwin.
-keyhook allows you to use Alt-Tab and the Menu key inside the session.
-xkbmodel microsoft allows you to use a nice big Microsoft keyboard with all the keys. You can also specify pc101 and similar.

With that, everything should work. But, the downside is that you now have a Cygwin window sitting on your taskbar. Hardly elegant.

4. Create a batch file to start cygwin, and run xwin, while hiding itself. I have a SungX.cmd file:
D:
cd \Linux\cygwin\bin\
cygstart.exe --hide -- bash --login  -i -c /startsungx

That'll start up cygwin, hidden, and run your xwin script. Enjoy!

Now, what I'd REALLY be interested in having is a way to have each application that registers for the Gnome application list panel appear on the Windows taskbar. Or maybe not, as it'd add to the clutter. Either way, I'd like to try it for a bit. If anyone knows, drop me a line.

This post is because of Micah, who had the most classic expression when he saw the Gnome Fedora Core 2 splash screen load up right in the middle of Windows XP. (Yea, I've since moved to RHEL, err, TaoLinux.)