Working remotely on a UNIX machine from XP any thoughts.....

starky

Hopefully this is the correct place to post this. (Mods please fell free to move as appropriate)

Ok so I work for a mid sized software company. Naturally I have to work on every UNIX platform under the sun.

Now I don’t mind this. My primary OS is windows, I am not sure if I can change this. I generally use reflection x and telnet/rlogon to what ever machine/paltform I need to use for development testing and bug fixing.

But there has to be a better way……

I have gotten so use to using IDE’s for c++ and java etc on winXP that when I switch to a terminal and fire up vi my productivity takes a serious hit. Now I have been using this method for a good while and have fairly fluent vi capability but I got to thinking is there a better way to do this?

Various people at work have all sorts of different ways of doing things which I could probably use but I want to know what in people’s opinions is the best way to work remotely on UINX machines from a windows machine? So I can do things right form the start.

What tools (other then Terminal based methods) would people recommend to connect remotely to UNIX machines from windows?
What else is there out there that may be a little quicker to use then a standard unix editor, vi, pico etc, as in IDE features i.e. is there any sort of tool that I can use as a remote IDE for JAVA/C++ etc on UNIX platforms? Or am I just asking too much…..

I may try and switch my entire platform to UNIX but would still have to connect to various other platforms anyway so not sure if this will really help.

Anyway if any one has any thoughts suggestions on this I would appreciate there help thanks in advance.

jesus_thats_gre

Am in a similar situation myself. Use a XP desktop machine in work but most of my work is carried out on VMS with the rest done in Unix. After a few years, if I am doing any scripting or anything like that, I just edit the file in Textpad and FTP back it in VMS or Unix when I am done. Crude but it works

Nick_oliveri

Is there any way (unix proggy similar to remote desktop on windows) to remotely access your UNIX machine from another UNIX machine? I suggest this because you could use software like VMware to emulate your UNIX distro and go remote through that if its possible!!!??

Edit: TightVNC and VMware would be the two i'd put together. You might not even need VMware.

Tom Dunne

There is a better way.

The very nature of the X Windows environment means you can run a program on a Unix machine and display it on another machine. I used to babysit around 400 machines that did this.

So, once you find an IDE on Unix that you like, you can fire it up and have it displayed on your XP machine, as if it was running on your XP machine. You will need an X Windows exmulation software on your XP machine, one such product I have used before is Exceed.

So the IDE will be installed on Unix, run on the Unix machine, but displayed on you XP machine. The only caveat is that the Unix machine runs X Windows, which I would be very surprised if it didn't.

Capt'n Midnight

Remote desktop stuff

On linux you can use rdesktop to connect to windows terminal services, if you want to control windows servers from a linux box.

vnc / xvncviewer ( realvnc and clones ) allow most OS's desktops to be viewed from each other, though I never got the DOS client working and controlling a large desktop from a PDA with windows CE means a lot of scrolling or squinting

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/interopmigration/bb380242.aspx
Windows Services for UNIX version provides a full (sic) range of cross-platform services for integrating Windows into existing UNIX-based environments.

starky

tom dunne wrote:

There is a better way.

The very nature of the X Windows environment means you can run a program on a Unix machine and display it on another machine. I used to babysit around 400 machines that did this.

So, once you find an IDE on Unix that you like, you can fire it up and have it displayed on your XP machine, as if it was running on your XP machine. You will need an X Windows exmulation software on your XP machine, one such product I have used before is Exceed.

So the IDE will be installed on Unix, run on the Unix machine, but displayed on you XP machine. The only caveat is that the Unix machine runs X Windows, which I would be very surprised if it didn't.

Thanks for the comments, Mr Dunne this sounds like the way to go I think… I am going to have a look into this I reckon. And going to try and see if I can get a dual boot UNIX/XP set up on my laptop too. At this stage the vi commands are carved into my brain!
Will look into the VMware option too! I now at least have a place to start, I am going to drag my UNIX productivity into line if it kills me….

matrim

I use openssh for terminal connections and vnc for remote desktop if I need to connect to a GUI.
If you are working over an insecure connection you can forward the vnc ports over the ssh connection to secure your passwords.

There are versions of both for each distro and once you get used to them, it only takes about 20 minutes to setup.

SouperComputer

freenx is also good. There is a windows client.

TightVNC as mentioned above is okay, be sure to use the DSM encryption plugin.

Also as mentioned, VMware/DualBoot/LiveCD + Terminal X windows session.

matt-dublin

vnc ftw otherwise ssh