The beauty of X over SSH

(Here is a screenshot of my Windows XP desktop using PuTTY and Xming to tunnel X over SSH from The Self-Reliant Thin Client running Debian Etch. Click the picture above for a full 1280x1024 image. Clockwise from left, I'm running GNOME's Update Manager, a console with PuTTY and the Rox-filer file manager).

I hadn't used my go-to SSH and X apps in Windows XP to access a Unix-like box in a long while. I actually had to find PuTTY before I could create a shortcut and run it. I already had an Xming shortcut, so I started that and left it in the background until I was ready to begin my X session.

If you use both Windows and Linux/Unix boxes and are not familiar with PuTTY and Xming, you're really missing out. In case it's not totally clear above, PuTTY enables you to run an SSH console session from your networked Unix-like box, and Xming allows you to run X apps over that same connection.

It's all good, clean geeky fun, especially over a local network. One of these days I'm going to experiment with dynamic DNS and figure out how to SSH from a box that isn't in the same building. The stakes there are a bit higher, as the box is out there on the Internet for all to see. But with the proper tools and procedures in place, everything should be secure.

Still, running Linux apps both in the console and in X on a Windows box really never does get old (to me at least).

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