Run X11 apps on a machine without X11 installed?

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Napalm Llama · Post by **Napalm Llama** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:26 am

Hi there.

I have a quick question: Is it possible to run a graphical application on a system that doesn't actually have X11 installed, if it's using another machine as its display? Would the system need libX11 or anything like that installed for its applications to connect to any X server at all? What are the minimal package requirements for what I'm suggesting?

pycior · Post by **pycior** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:43 am

I knnow you can run links in graph. mode with the use of svgalib or sth.
but I'm pretty sure that running Xapps require an Xserver

Napalm Llama · Post by **Napalm Llama** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:51 am

Oh I know that there needs to be an X server on the machine that's displaying the window, has a mouse and keyboard attached, etc. But why should there be one on the machine that's running the program, if nothing's connecting to it?

jurrie · Post by **jurrie** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:52 am

You can do that using nxserver free edition, for example. On the server you will need some X libs installed and, when using f.e. a qt app, qt3 (don't know if you NEED them, but portage installs them anyway). This way you can run applications installed on the remote machine on your current desktop (be it linux, os x or windows).

Napalm Llama · Post by **Napalm Llama** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:35 am

nxserver sounds interesting, but it seems it's only for the x86[_64] architecture - the machine I want to run these programs on is PPC. I'm aware that I'll need things like qt and kdelibs if I want to run a KDE app, but what general X11 stuff do I need installed, to enable the program to connect to the remote server? I'm sure I don't need half of the stuff Portage tries to pull in.

For example, the calculator app from KDE wants another 45 packages!

jurrie · Post by **jurrie** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:20 am

Can't help you with that I'm afraid. I think we need someone with a higher skill level for that ;) I'll keep an eye on the thread though, cause I'm interested.

arthurv · Post by **arthurv** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:13 pm

you can use ssh to connect to the machine with the program, using X forwarding, and simply run your program and it will display on your window.

Code: Select all

user@localhost ~ $ ssh -X -C computer@somewhere
password:
computer@somewhere ~$ myprogram &

and that should do it.

Napalm Llama · Post by **Napalm Llama** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:05 pm

Yup, that's what I already do when I want to access a program on my main PC remotely. However, my main PC already has X11 and all its accompanying packages installed, so that's not what I'm concerned about.

I'm talking about running X11 programs on a machine without X11 installed, and Portage wants to install several dozen supporting packages even for the simplest graphical application, presumably because it thinks I want the same machine I'm installing it on as the display, which I don't.

What I want to know is how few supporting packages I can get away with, and what the essential ones are.

arthurv · Post by **arthurv** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:29 pm

ah, i see. well in that case, simply do 'emerge --nodeps program'

the thing is, it may also want to link with libraries like GTK or Qt - since they're a layer above the X11 protocol, I'm not sure if you need to install them on the 'server' machine or the client, my advice is to give it a try, install dependencies one by one (and use --nodeps to avoid pulling in everything) until it works.

good luck!