On Sat, 2003-02-15 at 16:48, Louis Selvon wrote:
> >If you just want to start playing, the port of XFree86 to Windows is hard to
> beat. It does essentially the same thing.
>
> Louis> Thanks for a detailed explanation. Ok Now as I understand I install
> XFREE86 on my Master PC running windows 2000. I am downloading cgywin at the
> quoted url. I am letting it download all the stuff. I see that Xfree86 is
> there as well from the install package.
ok, good.
>
> >I think I installed it by grabbing the cygwin installer and ticking the
> "XFree86" box in the installer. It did the rest of the work for me. You
> configure your linux box to use gdm (or similar) to export displays to
> other computers (there's a GUI config tool to do this, but ask if you
> have problems, I realise I'm being brief), and then you basically just
> start the X server on your windows computer and you'll have a linux
> desktop right there on your Windows box inside a window.
>
> Louis> I am confused here. Once Linux is installed on the slave PC. What's the
> tool I use to configure the Linux box to export displays.
good question. Google around a bit for stuff on "xdm" or "gdm" (they are
both incarnations of the same technology). There is also the possibility
that you're running a third program called "kdm". Alas they all have
different configuration mechanisms. If it's xdm (which it probably won't
be), you need to edit a configuration file with a text editor. I think
there's something at www.tldp.org about it, but otherwise, googling for
"xdmcp" or "xdm" or something will tell you what you need to know.
gdm uses a program called "gdmsetup" to configure it. You need to be
'root' to run it (although if you're not, my system prompts for root
password, yours may also). You need to go to the xdmcp tab and enable
xdmcp, enable "honour indirect requests", and if you like, fiddle with
all the numbers except the port number (they're fairly self explanatory)
If you're using kdm, I'm afraid I can't help you. I've been very happy
with gdm so I don't have kdm installed. Perhaps someone else could help
out here? (this is from GNOME 2.2, I don't know if earlier versions were
the same or not, I can't remember)
What distribution are you using? you might have mentioned but I've
forgotten. Hopefully someone here can tell you what the default display
manager (that's what the dm part is for) is and if there's an easy way
to get to the configuration tool for it.
Now, after configuring your chosen dm, you will need to restart it. You
can do this without rebooting, but if you're new to all this, a reboot
is probably the easiest way to do it.
>
> Now if I understand above once I start the X server on the Master PC running
> Windows 2000 and see this Linux desktop right there, and I click on it will
> this connect to Linux on the Slave PC ?
rougly. You need to tell the X server to connect to the right computer,
then you'll be presented with a login screen, and you can login and use
the computer as previously explained.
I'm not using windows right now, but I think the commands (to run in
cmd.exe) you'd be looking for to do this would be something like this
(can anyone point to an easier way?):
cd \cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin
XWin -query <IP of "slave" computer>
and put the IP in as necessary. Other options for that second line if it
doesn't work are as follows:
XWin -broadcast
(note: no IP address)
OR
XWin -indirect <IP of "slave" computer>
Acutally, in hindsight, it's probably this last one you want. If all
goes well, you should get a big grey window on your computer, and a few
seconds later you should see the login screen that you see on your linux
box when you start it up.
>
> >The other option is vnc - which is a nifty utility which essentially
> does the same thing. It's a thin line, but I would say the tools are
> such that it's easier to set things up with a Windows X server.
>
> Louis> I downloaded VNC before, but could not get it to work properly. So I
> gave up with it.
I find VNC is more useful when I need to control windows computers from
linux. Ditto Macs running System 9.
>
> Any I have connected all PCs to the hub, and turned them all on. I am in
> windows in both of them, what do I do to even see if I can access the drives
> from the other PC, or test that the networking is ok ?
ping is the canonical test of network connectivity. Ping each machine
from the other. The command you use (it's the same on windows and linux)
is:
ping <IP of other computer>
oh, and in case you don't know what the IP is on either box, you use the
"ipconfig" command to find out on windows, and "/sbin/ifconfig eth0" on
Linux.
>From the linux side you see something like this:
$ ping 129.78.64.1
PING 129.78.64.1 (129.78.64.1) from 192.168.9.20 : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 129.78.64.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=252 time=149 ms
64 bytes from 129.78.64.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=252 time=139 ms
64 bytes from 129.78.64.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=252 time=140 ms
--- 129.78.64.1 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% loss, time 2029ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 139.780/143.104/149.399/4.453 ms
The important part being that you see the "64 bytes from ... icmp_seq=x"
bit. If you see "Destination Host Unreachable" anywhere, your network is
broken.
HTH,
(and check out the networking stuff at tldp.org as well. Will save you a
lot of time)
James.
--
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