Tuesday, September 8, 2009

CYGWIN Anyone?

Just wondering if anyone is using the X server from CYGWIN for Windows?  I tried CYGWIN years ago but found that it did not have any GUI features so I abandoned it.  However, I recently stumbled upon http://x.cygwin.com which ports an X server to Windows!  This sounds promising! 
You see, my situation is that I have a linux server setup for ssh and sftp so my students can login there and save their work.  At school they access this server from my dual-boot Windows-Linux lab.  In prior years I'd give my students a bootable linux cd so they could have a linux environment at home and access the ssh server from home as well as at school including X11 forwarded GUI apps (just like at school).

I'm just curious if anyone reading this blog has had experience with x.cygwin using Windows to access a Linux ssh server.  Is it tough for the students to setup?  I tried setting up cygwin at home but mistakenly used only the default setup options which only gives you a linux like shell you can use locally without any GUI apps - strictly text based - just like the old cygwin - and no ssh/scp/sftp related apps! 

By the way, my students and I already have this functionality from Windows using putty (ie text based + ssh), so why install the whole CYGWIN distro?
 

Teaching with Technology, 
calcpage@aol.com

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