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Thomas Browne
Asked: 2014-01-19 09:26:31 +0800 CST

Can I run my full Ubuntu Unity desktop on my Windows machine using X?

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I am currently running Ubuntu 13 Desktop edition on a second PC on my desk, which has one small monitor. For work reasons my primary machine must be Windows(7), and it has multiple monitors, of varying resolutions.

I wish to have my Ubuntu Desktop fill up all those Windows monitors at their native resolutions so that I can basically make Ubuntu my primary desktop, without physically plugging in the keyboard and monitors into the Ubuntu box. Both machines are connected within a fire walled internal 1Gb network, and both have fixed IP addresses.

Nomachine NX is working pretty well up to now, but seems limited to aping the exact resolution of the (small) monitor I have on the Ubuntu box. VNC the same.

I do not wish to use a VM solution such as VMWare (though this does work), as I need more than one computer for reasons of data analysis throughput.

Is this possible? Is it viable? And how exactly do I go about it?

I have already downloaded and run MobaXterm, and running terminals over SSH seems to work fine. I have also run Firefox and other Ubuntu-machine applications in windows on my Windows machine, by calling them from the SSH terminal command line. But no luck so far getting the full Unity monty across my Windows monitors.

xorg

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This post may be a bit dated, but the principal applies.

    Intro to X Forwarding

    Unix machines have been able to run software on a remote machine and display the GUI locally for almost two decades. Linux and Mac OS X support X Forwarding with no extra software. Any terminal on Linux should do X Forwarding, Mac users need to run "Applications > Utilities > XTerm". In a command line terminal run "ssh -Y [email protected] matlab" and you'll be running matlab on "compute.example.edu" but seeing it on your desktop. Windows users need two pieces of software: an secure shell program (ssh) to establish the remote connection and an X Server to handle the local display. Prerequisites

    Putty for SSH Xming for the XServer

    **Configuring Putty

    1. Add Unix hostname
    2. Switch Protocol to SSH
    3. Type name of session in saved sessions
    4. Click 'Save'

    enter image description here

    1. Expand the 'SSH' tab from the 'Category' list
    2. Choose 'X11' from 'SSH' list
    3. Check 'Enable X11 Forwarding'

    enter image description here

    1. Choose 'Session' from 'Category' list
    2. Click 'Save'

    Starting the X Server on Windows Configuring Xming

    Just run "All Programs > Xming Xming" and it should work if you've got PuTTY configured.

    Connecting

    1. Start Xming
    2. Start Putty
    3. Double click on the saved session you want

    enter image description here

    1. Enter username and password as requested
    2. You should now be able to run X applications from the host on your local desktop

    Source: Math.umn.edu

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  2. I'm not sure if you tried this already, but you could install Ubuntu within a VM on Windows by using either VirtualBox or VMware. Then you can fire up the virtual machine on one screen, and use Ubuntu there while still being "physically" on Windows.

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  3. I can suggest you to use RDP beside VNC,since windows also natively support RDP And there are FreeRDP or Remmina.But i'm not sure about it's multi monitor support.

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