OESF Portables Forum

Model Specific Forums => Sharp Zaurus => Zaurus - pdaXrom => Topic started by: padishah_emperor on July 13, 2004, 09:57:35 am

Title: Remote X display
Post by: padishah_emperor on July 13, 2004, 09:57:35 am
Back in ye olde days, well a year or so ago when my beloved SPARCstation was getting too slow even for GIMP, I setup a Solaris x86 box which was faster and ran the X clients from that. If I remember on one machine I ran xhost + and exported the display on the other.

For the life of me I cannot remember how I got it to work, but surely this should be able to work on my Z and Debian.

Has anyone with pdaXrom managed to do this? I'd like to bring my Z's desktop up on my Debian box.

Thanks
Title: Remote X display
Post by: ScottYelich on July 13, 2004, 10:15:08 am
I do this all the time to get opera on the pda :->
(although, as I mention last time, full screen mode doesn't work remote).

The idea is simple/trivial... but sometimes people can get run-round in the terminology.

With X windows, you need to run an "X server" ... and clients connect
to this server using different protocols (X protocol, etc).

If you have an X server, say, the Zaurus, you can figure out
your display -- which is typically your host or IP address :0.0
for first display (1.0 for second, etc.).  On the *SERVER*, you can
tell the server to allow clients to connect from other locations.
There are a few different authentication schemes, but with the simplest
one, you can use the xhost command to allow connections.

So, if you know the hostname/IP of the location where you are going to
be running an X *CLIENT*, on the *SERVER* (ie: Zaurus), simply type:

xhost + IP

Then, on the remote machine (ie: the "IP" above), set your display.
In [t]csh, that would be:  setenv DISPLAY IP_OF_ZAURUS:0.0
in [k]sh, that would be:  DISPLAY=IP_OF_ZAURUS:0.0; export DISPLAY

then simply run your x client, such as "xlogo &"


Typically, the X client will connect to the server on port 6000 (for display
0.0, and 6001 for 1.0, etc).

Now, I've noticed that both pdaXrom and freebsd seem to start the
X server without a listening socket (for security?) so... if you do a
ps, I think it will show "do not listen" or "no listen tcp" or something.
If that's the case, you will not be able to connect to this server from
a remote location (well, you can, but I won't tell you how here).
Instead, remember to start the X server with "-listen_tcp" ..

ie:  startx -listen_tcp

Sorry, if you're in X already, you will have to exit X and restart it.

Enjoy!

Scott
Title: Remote X display
Post by: padishah_emperor on July 13, 2004, 10:33:17 am
Yes I do understand the terminology, I've been running X for a long time.   Although my posting may have given the wrong impression, I ran an X server on my SPARCstation, and I ran the X clients from a Solaris x86 system.

I don't want to run Debian apps from my desktop on the Z, I want the Z's desktop on my Debian's display.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'll give it another go, thanks Scott



UPDATE
No joy, X only seems to want to start locally on the Z
Title: Remote X display
Post by: padishah_emperor on July 13, 2004, 11:02:51 am
PS, I CAN run clients from my Debian on my Z's X server ok for a random period before getting a

X IO Error

on the Debian box from the client, sometimes that error does not appear, the client just terminates.

But anyway...

I'm getting eye strain from over usage of my Z    If anyone can give me any pointers to getting this working I'd be most grateful. (I'm sure it just worked without fuss on my Solaris boxes  )

Oh yes, I'm using the USB networking do-dah for this.
Title: Remote X display
Post by: bluedevils on July 13, 2004, 11:52:34 am
you want a 640x480 desktop on your debian?  Wouldn't that involve only booting to commandline on the debian, xhost +zaurus, DISPLAY=debian:0.0 while telnet/ssh to the zaurus from Debian, export Display and then starting X on the zaurus throught the telnet/ssh session from the debian box.

It might be easier just to have zaurus apps display on the debian.
Title: Remote X display
Post by: padishah_emperor on July 13, 2004, 12:31:20 pm
No, the pdaXrom desktop SHOULD fillout on my 1024x768 screen on my Debian box. I just don't get why it doesn't work.

I don't want to run individual applications off the Z, I want the full monty.

OK, I'm not making any progress here, does anyone know if there is a VNC server for pdaXrom.
Title: Remote X display
Post by: zxerx on July 14, 2004, 02:58:05 am
On Debian, change /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc from:

exec /usr/bin/X11/X -dpi 100 -nolisten tcp

to

exec /usr/bin/X11/X -dpi 100

In other words, allow your X server to accept tcp connections...
Title: Remote X display
Post by: tz on July 14, 2004, 05:04:25 pm
SDG systems has a VNC Server which they are maintaining:

http://sdgsystems.com/downloads/ (http://sdgsystems.com/downloads/)

That should work with any VNC client (works on my Windows and Mac client).

Normally I ssh to the Z and use the console in a terminal on my laptop.

If you run X apps, setting the DISPLAY variable should work, i.e.

on the Z:

xterm -display 192.168.129.1:0.0 &

(after doing xhost + (192.168.129.201) on the host)

brings up an xterm on my laptop.  From there I can bring up firefox (I don't have PdaXRom, just XQt and a few programs).

If there is an I/O error, then the problem is likely with a driver or cable.  You may wish to try it using wireless or wired ethernet to the Z and see if it still happens.
Title: Remote X display
Post by: padishah_emperor on July 14, 2004, 06:37:42 pm
@tz
Thanks, I don't think it will work on pdaXrom but I will give it a go.

@zxerx
I gave it a try but it didn't seem to make any difference.
Title: Remote X display
Post by: ScottYelich on July 15, 2004, 10:42:55 am
Quote
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'll give it another go, thanks Scott

UPDATE
No joy, X only seems to want to start locally on the Z


The whole environment is basically just a window manager, etc.

You basically want /need to run a vnc server on the Z.  I did this a while
back with qtopia rom and pocketworkstation:

BOTH qtopia *and* pocketworkstation were running at the same time...
you can see the icewm "desktop" on the right:

http://zaurus.spy.org/screenshots/scottyel...4x768_scrot.jpg (http://zaurus.spy.org/screenshots/scottyelich/qtopia-zdebian-vnc/2003-10-19-172615_1024x768_scrot.jpg)

I set up that desktop to be 800x600  so it would be usable on my freebsd (remote) display, yet not take up the entire (remote) display.   Today, I would use xfce
instead of icewm.

good luck.


Scott
Title: Remote X display
Post by: tz on July 15, 2004, 05:03:55 pm
The VNC server (if you pull it out of the ipkg) should work if you start it from the command line.  The Qt/E "app" is just a shell that fires it off in the background while ticking off a progress bar.  I think it just reads from /dev/fb
Title: Remote X display
Post by: padishah_emperor on July 19, 2004, 01:33:09 pm
No, that won't work. It requires a kbdsim module which wont work properly, the keyboard and mouse stop working and the VNC output is rotated 90 degrees.