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vncserver, or any X server

John Simonetti wrote on Apr 12, 2000

Has anyone tried to use vncserver. It is a X server. I am running vncserver
on a Sun workstation and vncviewer.exe on a Windows95 PC (both are free).
I am trying to run IRAF on the workstation, from my PC. I can't get ximtool
to work well.

I've tried running vncserver like so (at the suggestion of someone at NOAO):

% vncserver -cc 3 -depth 8

then I start up vncviewer.exe on the PC, open an ximtool, and xgterm, and
start up IRAF in the xgterm.  I can display an image in ximtool (using, for
example "cl> display test.fit" in IRAF), but with only a few color levels
(nothing like 256 colors/greyscales).  If I drop the "-cc 3" I get no image
at all in ximtool (only a uniform color).  I've tried other "-cc" values,
but with no better luck (sometimes no image at all).

If anyone knows of a cheap X server I could use as an alternative, I'd
appreciate hearing about it.  (I've tried MIX, but it gave strange
responses to imexamine key commands --- the ximtool cursor moves when I hit
"z", for example!)

Thanks for any help you can give.

--John Simonetti

*************************************************************
John Simonetti
Physics Department, Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061
Phone: 540-231-8740    Fax: 540-231-7511   E-mail: jhs@vt.edu
*************************************************************

Doug Tody wrote on Apr 12, 2000

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, John Simonetti wrote:

> Has anyone tried to use vncserver. It is a X server. I am running vncserver
> on a Sun workstation and vncviewer.exe on a Windows95 PC (both are free).
> I am trying to run IRAF on the workstation, from my PC. I can't get ximtool
> to work well.
> 
> I've tried running vncserver like so (at the suggestion of someone at NOAO):
> 
> % vncserver -cc 3 -depth 8
> 
> then I start up vncviewer.exe on the PC, open an ximtool, and xgterm, and
> start up IRAF in the xgterm.  I can display an image in ximtool (using, for
> example "cl> display test.fit" in IRAF), but with only a few color levels
> (nothing like 256 colors/greyscales).  If I drop the "-cc 3" I get no image
> at all in ximtool (only a uniform color).  I've tried other "-cc" values,
> but with no better luck (sometimes no image at all).
> 
> If anyone knows of a cheap X server I could use as an alternative, I'd
> appreciate hearing about it.  (I've tried MIX, but it gave strange
> responses to imexamine key commands --- the ximtool cursor moves when I hit
> "z", for example!)

Hi John,

Someone else who has played with this more may be able to give you some
better pointers, but I can at least give you a couple of leads.  First,
you are probably already doing so, but make sure you are running "256 colors"
for the desktop on the Windows side.  Avoid using a fancy wallpaper to
minimize color usage.  VNC does a compressed screen rectangle copy, 
calculating every pixel, so matching the screens as much as possible should
make things go faster (it will still be slower than a real X display).
If the screen depth is matched it should just be a matter of an 8 bit lookup
table to map the colors.

Second, if you can't get VNC to work acceptably you might also want to take
a look at VMware.  VMware creates a virtual PC on top of a real PC operating
system such as Linux or NT.   Your situation is difficult since you are
running Windows 95.  An option to consider in your case would be to partition
the disk and install both Win95 and Linux as native systems on two different
disk partitions.  You would run the native Win95 partition when you needed
to run software that would only run under native Win95.  In other cases you
could run Linux on the PC, but run Win95 within a VMware virtual machine,
which appears as a window containing Windows on the PC.  This would give you
both a very fast native Linux capability (good for IRAF display), plus a
Windows capability for running (most) Windows apps.  Apps that need 3d video
card features might not work, but most things run pretty well under VMware.

Assuming you have a powerful enough machine, the only additional cost is
for VMware, which is in the $50-100 range for a single user.  After working
with VNC under Windows for a while, this is how I ended up running my PC
most of the time.  I have Win98, NT4, and RedHat Linux installed in separate
bootable partitions, but most of the time I run Linux as the native OS
with WinNT and all its apps running in a VMware window.  A FAT partition
somewhere can be used to share files between the different operating systems,
alternatively VMware now has the capability to install SAMBA on Linux so
that you can access the Linux disks from within Windows.

Just some options to consider.

	- Doug

Len Bright wrote on Apr 12, 2000

John Simonetti wrote:

> If anyone knows of a cheap X server I could use as an alternative, I'd
> appreciate hearing about it.  (I've tried MIX, but it gave strange
> responses to imexamine key commands --- the ximtool cursor moves when I hit
> "z", for example!)

Are you running something like Cygwin on your Windows PC? I have had
success on a Win98 PC running Cygwin and MIX as an X server. I then
export the xhost from the Windows machine thusly:

xhost ip address    # remote machine

then telnet to the Solaris machine and login and:

export DISPLAY=xxx.xxx.xxx:0  # IP address of windows machine

then open up xterms, x programs, ximtool, etc.

It is essential that the Win machine run the same number of colors
required by the software you are attempting to run.

Cygwin source is available from
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/cvs.html

I acquired both Cygwin and MIX included with the Windows version of 
FTOOLS/fv available from HEASARC for download or free of cost on CDROM. 

Another alternative X server for Windows is Hummingbird Exceed
http://www.hummingbird.com. This software is included in newer versions
of SuSE linux.

Personally I think the best solution is to partition the Windows hard
drive to be shared by Linux and then export the xhost as described
above. Otherwise why not run Samba to give you file sharing capability
if what is required is to put your ximtool/iraf files onto the Windows
machine quickly. 

-Len

    
> 
> Thanks for any help you can give.
> 
> --John Simonetti
> 
> *************************************************************
> John Simonetti
> Physics Department, Virginia Tech
> Blacksburg VA 24061
> Phone: 540-231-8740    Fax: 540-231-7511   E-mail: jhs@vt.edu
> *************************************************************

-- 


========================================================================       

Len Bright
bright@infomagic.net

========================================================================

Fabricio Ferrari wrote on Apr 13, 2000

  >  
  >  
  >  Thanks for any help you can give.
  >  
  >  --John Simonetti
  >  

Hi John,
some people said to partition the disk and install the Linux 
in one partition. That's the best option of course, but if you 
does not want to do this, Mandrake Linux (www.mandrake.com) is able 
to install Linux in a Windows partition. It creates a virtual 
filesystem and installs Linux in it. It doesn't fly  like a real 
Linux box but it might be a better option than to play with X servers.
In time: Mandrake is based on RedHat so you could even install IRAF
in it. 

Hope this help.

-- 
Fabricio Ferrari   

+-------------------------------+
|       FABRICIO FERRARI        | 
+-------------------------------+    
|    IF - UFRGS  Sala M205      |
|     ferrari@if.ufrgs.br       |
|   www.if.ufrgs.br/~ferrari    | 
|   Porto Alegre RS - Brasil    |
+-------------------------------+

  (O>  
  //\ 
  V_/_  Linux

Last post on Apr 13, 2000