Xwindows
Xwindows is a graphics and windowing system designed
to operate over a network. There are two parts, a client and a
server which communicate using the X Protocol. Unlike
a personal computer, which runs applications locally, the applications
are actually run off the server and displayed locally on the
user's screen.
Xwindows divides up the user's screen into multiple
windows, each able to run a separate application. The windows can
either run programs that have a point-and-click, graphical interface,
or they can emulate a terminal allowing a workstation to display
multiple, simultaneous terminal sessions.
Running X Applications Remotely
If you are running X Windows on a Unix computer other than the one you
originally logged onto (ie: remotely accessing Rohan from another Unix
computer), you should use ssh to connect to Rohan. The ssh (Secure
Shell) program will set your DISPLAY variable so X applications can be
viewed. Telnet and rlogin will not.
If you can not use ssh, you must reset the DISPLAY
variable on the remote machine to that of the machine you are logged onto.
You can determine the value of the local DISPLAY variable by typing,
echo $DISPLAY
Then set your local machine to allow the display from the remote machine
with the command,
xhost +remote.sdsu.edu
Finally, once you are logged onto the remote machine on which you will run
the X application, type,
setenv DISPLAY machine.sdsu.edu:0.0
where machine.sdsu.edu is the
value returned by the echo command.
Technical Briefs
ROHAN Help Index