[ale] Open source X-Windows for MS-Windows workstations

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Mon, 2009-09-14 at 09:00 -0400, Jeff Lightner wrote:
> Can anyone tell me what open source X-Windows package(s) you use to
> display X-Windows on your MS-Windows desktops/laptops?
> In most of my jobs I’ve used Hummingbird Exceed ($$$) and it works
> great.
> 
> Previously we installed Xming (a subset of the Cygwin stuff) but I
> never really used it to a great extent.   The powers that be got wind
> of Cygwin from someone else and now think they want to replace Exceed
> with it.   However, my coworker had told me there were some things
> he’d seen issues with Xming (though I never saw them).   Does anyone
> have experience using Cygwin/Xming to display commercial UNIX (HP-UX,
> AIX, Solaris) and Linux X-Windows?   If so do you know of any gotchas
> such as rendering problems with specific X apps?


I've used Xming and the X server that comes with Cygwin to display
applications from HP-UX and Solaris boxes without trouble in the past.
This was on an old network that didn't use SSH (rather, telnet
everywhere and remote application display using DISPLAY=IP:0.0 on the
remote, combined with xhost access control on the local machine).  I've
never had a problem.  The application that I probably used the most in
this manner was HP's OpenView; it worked just fine.

I did wind up setting things up on an Ubuntu box at that job, though,
but only because Windows refused to push the graphics hardware to its
limit, resolution-wise, and I wanted to see much more of OpenView on the
monitor than Windows would let me.  IIRC, Windows would only go up to
1024x768 on the box, while Ubuntu would let me go all the way up to
19??x16??.  I much preferred the latter resolution.  :)  In any event,
both worked just fine in comparison with Hummingbird's eXceed, though
you'll have to set up shortcuts and/or batch files yourself.


> Does anyone have any other FOSS X-Windows package suggestion for
> MS-Windws?
> 
> Also as I recall there is another commercial X-Windows package but its
> name escapes me.   If anyone is using that and has opinions of it as
> compared to Exceed or Cygwin/Xming I’d be interested in hearing it.


It seems that the latest Xming (X11R7.5) is licensed differently; the
site says the access is for private individuals, and that a license is
required for commercial use of the latest releases; releases from
SourceForge are public domain, though and can still be used in a
commercial environment.  For most uses, I'd suspect that you don't need
X11R7.5 and that a release of X11R6.9 (available on Sourceforge) will do
just fine.  If any of that is a problem, I'd recommend Cygwin, but
Cygwin overall is slower due to the POSIX compatibility emulation
combined with the expense of process creation on Windows (and is
probably overkill if all you need is an X11 display).

    — Mike


-- 
Blog:  http://mike.trausch.us/blog/
Misc. Software:  http://mike.trausch.us/software/
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