Help please with Xwindow server stuff

A

A@ron

Registered
Hello, its my first post here.

Here is the situation I am in... My university has a HP-UX network that I would like to xwindow into using a xwindow server program. I know it can be done because in the labs they also have NT machines that use xWin Pro to accomplish what I want to do. I have tried iTools and found it unstable, eXodus and found it expensive but it works. This was all before my comp decided it needed a clean install of 10.2 after starting and finding no system at all. So, now I want to know if eXodus is my best bet or if there is anyother "free" (as in beer) opensource software program that has the options like font server and all that. I would rather use open source then pay of course seeing as how I just shelled out $680 in books.

Thank you,
A@ron
 
Yes, there are a couple of free, open source options.

One is to download the XFree86 kit from http://www.apple.com/macosx/downloads

You will find it under "Unix" I think.

The other method, slightly harder but more useful in the long run, is to use the program "Fink" to download and install the X-Windows packages. You'll need to install X-Darwin, and run this to get a basic X-Server-Client running on your machine.

Once this is done you should be able to run XDarwin and you will see a basic set of x-tools running on your desktop (an xterm, a clock, and xeyes is I think the standard setup).

From here, you can use the xTerm session to open a connection to the remote host. This will not work from a normal Terminal, you must use a local xterm session.

You would do this by entering ssh username@myserver.net (or Telnet, if thats what they use) You then enter your password, and you should be online to a terminal session on the remote host, running in your xterm.

Then, you can simply type the command for whatever you want to run. For instance, if you wanted a remote session of gnome, I think you'd enter "gnome-wm". You can enter the name of any X app and it should pop up on your local desktop.

---

I know this sounds very vague, but I am without my mac for consultation this week. I hope this points you in the right direction.
 
I know how to use ssh and all but I do have one question. When Im in a normal terminal it will not open new windows for applications or show the desktop environment for the HP-UX machines. It would be great if there was a way to actually get the desktop environment. So using fink will allow me to get remote windows to open on my machine through window mapping or whatever its called?

Thanks again,
A@ron
 
Sounds like you want to display remote X apps on your local X server. ssh -X remotehost will set up the display forwarding for you. Once you have logged in in this fashion (with the -X flag) you should be able to launch and interact with X applications on the remote server. If you want to run the remote window manager you need to do a bit more work. First poke around on the remote host and figure out what command launches your preferred window manager. I haven't a clue what the wm on an hp-ux system is :) Once you know the command for your preferred wm edit the ".xinitrc" file on your local machine so it looks something like this:

# This is a comment
#
#local window manager is launched below
#wmaker &
xterm

Notice that everything but an xterm is commented out. This is important if you want to run a remote wm because you can't run two wm's at the same time. Launch X in rooted mode and ssh -X remotehost from the xterm that shows up. Once you are logged in fire up that command that you found. If you found the proper command, and the system folks allow a desktop session to run over the network (they don't at my school) you should see your hp-ux desktop start up. Enjoy!

BTW I have played a bit with running window managers over the network via ssh from home over dsl and have found it to be painfully slow. My preferred solution is to run my windowmanager locally and to tunnel only the remote apps that I need to work with. Good luck :)
 
Personally to keep a nice clean look and feel, ther are two, ok, actually 3 things to download. First go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/xonx/ go under the files link at the top and download XInstall_10.1.sit you also want to download XFree86_4.2.0.1-10.2.zip which patches things for 10.2. First run the app that's in XInstall_10.1.sit, then the one thats in XFree86_4.2.0.1-10.2.zip. This will install XFree86 completely on your box, you'll get an XDarwin binary in /Applications. Now this is all well and good, but X does you no good without a window manger. I highly recommend grabbing OroboOSX from http://oroborosx.sourceforge.net OroborOSX is a nice package, you just justthe OroborOSX app, and it starts up X with the OroborOSX window manager. The windows look just like normal OS X windows, and even interleave with normal OS X windows. This is the easiest quickest way to get running and you don't have ot mess with all the annoying X configuration stuff for your window manager. Ofcourse, you can mess with allt hat if you wish, but if thats what you wanted to do, why are you running a mac? :)

Let me know if you have any other questions/problems.

Brian
 
A@ron: To clarify, the solution I gave you is by no means the best, only or most complete. But it will get you going quickly. I was going to mention OroborosX, which will give your X-windows apps a more Aqua look-n-feel, but felt it would only confuse the issue all the more.
There is a lot of customisation you can so and it is up to you to find what works well for you. Hgreenfi's information on editing the .xinitrc file is where you would start. I would also suggest, if you do decide to go the Fink way, trying out Gnome, Enlightenment and IceWM. Along with some downloaded themes (Starting with GTK themes) and some experimentation you can really achieve a lot.
My system is currently configured to automatically start a rootless Gnome on top of Aqua (rootless is a command-line option for Gnome). The result is that I have a Gnome menu sitting in the corner of the screen, and can call up X-Windows programs (my fave being The GIMP) with just a point-n-click. This is achieved by putting the command into the .xinitrc file.
The point is that you don't need to purchase any commercial software, and the X-servers available either in the distribution Btoneill mentioned, or via Fink, are well up to the task.
 
Ok I got that working but for somethings I need to actually get the desktop environment of the HP-UX machines. (HP-UX machines are HP/Compaq's unix workstations) I can use a XDMCP session to accomplish this as long as I get the font server and all that stuff. Or so I think. Anyone have information on this as help and advice is always appreaciated. Plus some of the professors are bugging me to get this to work that way. They have been migrating over to Mac's in the Biomedical Imaging department and the computer people have no idea I don't think.

A@ron
 
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