Remote X Login (GDM, XDMCP, Xmins, oh my)

At work, I’ve got a separate CentOS box on which development [by one other colleague besides me] is done, and an XP workstation which I use most of the time. I have used the XDMCP HOWTO to configure GDM on the CentOS to listen for remote connections. On the XP workstation, I use Xmins to easily access the remote X (with GDM and all).

The XDMCP HOWTO is pretty straightforward, and if the instructions are followed religiously, the results are pleasing. Like GDM, KDM as well and the frugal XDM can also be tweaked to enable XDMCP and listen fro remote login requests. I have not yet tried this on Slackware. As soon as I find some time, I’ll experiment with Slackware. I don’t have windows at home [only Slackware], so there is obviously and naturally no need for remote X login [at home].

The place in all this where you might get stuck is choosing a good tool to connect remotely to the X on the Windows side. There are many great tools available, but most of them are proprietary [and their demo versions don’t quite do what you want them to]. There is X-Win from Cygwin, but that requires Cygwin to be installed. Overlooking all those options, I ran a search across Freshmeat.net and bumped into Xmins. It is a great tool. The good thing about Xmins is that it requires zero configuration setting, is not more than 2-MB big, and does not need Cygwin installed to work. What more could one ask for?

And for those of you who love looking at screenshots, here is one.

Happy remote X’ing. :-)