VNC ? again

[Bart Silverstrim]

Wade Smart wrote:

> 
> 02282008 1114 GMT-6
> 
> NoOp, I have access to my computer again (what a relief) and I have
> uninstalled tightvnc. I saw the post by David about the steps to get VNC
> working but something crept into my mind.
> 
> Just to be clear: I need to access a Ubuntu computer (about 20 right
> now) from both ubuntu and windows XP systems. On the XP systems I am not
> allowed to install extra software such as the VNC Viewer so I wanted to
> do all of this over the browser.
> 
> And thinking one step ahead - as soon as I set this up the local admin
> will want to log in from home to fix something so security should be
> considered.
> 
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VNCOverSSH
> Reading this article about SSH - it says right at the beginning that it
> does not use Vino - but can it be used?
> 
> And the next thing I have to think about is - (and this might be wishful
> thinking) the desktops being accessed are teachers pc's. They dont know
> anything about their computers. So I really want this to be as simple as
>   possible.

Well...this is another possibility, but I don't know if you'd want to 
get used to it since it's kind of quirky if you're not used to it.

There's a CD you can get that is called xlivecd.  It is a fully 
contained cygwin installation.  Pop it into the Windows system and you 
end up with a bash prompt (nothing installed locally).  You can then do 
an ssh -X -C username at ubuntusystem, then launch your Ubuntu applications 
and have them appear on your Windows desktop.

For example, I have all my mail rules configured to run from my one 
workstation at the office just as I like to have them set up.  When I'm 
at a location working on a system, I can pop in the CD, ssh -X -C into 
it, and then type "thunderbird" and my mail client pops up just as I 
like it.  I don't print unless I'm at the office (since even from my 
remote location they'd pop out at the office printer), and sound doesn't 
forward to the system I'm sitting at, but that's okay for my situation. 
  I can also run OpenOffice and other applications as needed.

You can get a taste for how this works by just using that method from an 
existing Linux system to connect to your workstation remotely.

-Bart