How to use Xnest and startkde or gnome-session over SSH


The idea here is to ssh to a remote box, be able to call startx or startkde or gnome-session, and have it display back at the client in an Xnest window. Actually, I couldn't get this to work with startx; you have to call either startkde or gnome-session; on RH boxes, you probably want gnome-session.

  1. ssh to the remote host.
  2. run Xnest :1 -ac &
  3. run DISPLAY=:1 gnome-session

If you need to get root's desktop, ssh in as root; coming in as a mortal and then using su - doesn't seem to work; you get the mortal's menu.

08/04/2004