Running X-Windows Applications on Windows

Running X-Windows applications remotely on your Microsoft Windows PC

You can easily execute applications on your IRIX/Linux workstation and have them display on your Windows laptop or desktop PC. Doing so allows you to run graphical applications on your IRIX/Linux workstation from within the comfortable Windows environment.

In order to set this up simply follow these steps:

1. Download Xming from freedesktop.org. If this link fails, you can download a local (but probably out of date) copy from here.
2. Install Xming. Double click the icon and configure the installation to suit you. If you aren't sure of any of the options, simply accepting the defaults will work fine.
3. Launch the Xming application - either from the icon on the desktop or from the Start->Programs->Xming->Xming entry. You should see this icon in your system tray:

   

4. NOTE: If you already have a terminal emulator that you use to connect to your Linux/SGI machine with, you can use that and there is no need to download PuTTY. All you need to do is enable X11 forwarding in your terminal emulation software, log in to a UNIX workstation and execute some graphical applications.

   
   
   If you don't have it already, download PuTTY. Select the "putty.exe" binary. There is no installation program for PuTTY as it is a standalone application. Double click the PuTTY binary you downloaded to run the program.
5. Create a connection in PuTTY to your IRIX/Linux workstation and save it for future use.
   • set the "Host Name" to the host name of the computer you wish to connect to
   • set the port to "2200"
   • set the protocol to "SSH"

   

   • on the left hand side, expand the "Connection" then "SSH" options. You should see an "X11" entry. Click on X11 and check the "Enable X11 Forwarding" checkbox

   

   • Go back to the "Session" section at the top of the left hand pane
   • Type in the name of the host in the box below "Saved Sessions" and click "Save"
6. Double click the session you just saved. You might get a "Security Alert" stating "The server's host key is not cached in the registry..." Go ahead and click "Yes"

   

7. Log in with your username and password.
8. You should now be able to execute graphical applications from PuTTY and they will display locally on your Windows PC. To test this try running something like "xterm" or "firefox".