If you've been using Linux on the desktop you almost certainly have been using the X Window System.

In this episode we dive into what that is, where it came from and what kinds of choices you have.

We get into the toolkits like GTK and Qt and talk about desktop environments like Gnome and KDE.

Then we get into the future, namely Wayland.

If you want to run an X client application on a remote server, you need to have an Xserver running local. If your desktop is MacOS, you can install Xquartz. If it's Windows, you can install Xming.  If your desktop is Linux, you already have an Xserver running (or maybe you have Wayland, in which case you can run Xwayland).

The following command will log you into a remote system where you can run an X client application and have it display on your local desktop:

ssh -X [email protected]

If you echo your $DISPLAY environment variable, you should see something like:

localhost:10.0

That's telling the X client app to send it's data using the X protocol to the your local desktop and proxy it over SSH.

The next step is run on an X app. It's easy, just run it:

xterm

A terminal window should pop up on your local desktop.

Hosts:
Jim McQuillan can be reached at [email protected]
Wolf can be reached at [email protected]

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Theme music:
Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky