Hello.
I'm a novice *NIX user trying to convert a Windows 2000 Server to Redhat Linux 8.0. I've downloaded their free version from the their website, burnt the *.iso files, and installed Linux successfully. I would like to remotely administer my new server, and would like the advice of more experienced Linux users as the best way to access my server remotely from Windows (2000) clients.

I managed to connect via PuTTY over SSH to the server and can access the command-line just fine. I've also read about X11 forwarding and have run into a few snags, but I am at least familiar with the techniques and will get it running sooner or later. From what I've read, X11 forwarding won't exactly accomplish what I'm hoping to do.

I'm interested in knowing what is Linux's answer to Windows 2000 Terminal Server? What program can I use to access the same GUI I see when I log in locally? To my understanding, with X11 forwarding, I can launch individual X-Windows applications, but it doesn't give me access to the menu or desktop interface. As a novice slowly picking up skills, I would like full access to the desktop GUI untill I get more comfortable doing tasks through command line.

I want to sit at a Windows client and open a window that looks exactly like the Linux desktop, just like I do when I access Windows 2000 Servers through RDS/Terminal Server. What would you gentlemen and ladies recommend?

VNC might be what you're looking for.

You can run VNC over SSH too, I hear.

Thank you nxny, that was a good start. I'll be using this vnc for awhile until I figure out a better way to remotely administer this machine.

I have 2 concerns:
1. Perhaps it is my inexperience, but I had to do a lot of scrolling to get this working. The window didn't snap into my screen, but provided a windowed view of my server desktop (1024x768) on my client desktop (1280x1024), through a 1024x768 window, meaning that I could never see the entire desktop or resize it.

2. When I ran it, I seemed to run inconsistently. Icons would disappear window controls would disappear. I tried stopping it an restarting the server and all of the windowed controls for the XWindows application (the resize & close buttons) disappeared. I almost got the impression that it wasn't designed for what I was trying to do.

I will give it kudos for actually working on my first try. I've found that very few packages I seem to install work as easily as this one did.

May I ask you or anyone else reading this post, are these problems occuring because of my own inexperience and/or ignorance or are they fundamental realities of VNC? Will I never be able to see the full screen or view the screen at different resolutions?

Can I configure X11 forwarding over SSH or to view a GNOME/KDE desktop for a remote server on a Windows client? Do any other products display a Linux server's GNOME/KDE desktop on Windows?

Have never used VNC, sorry I cant help. Hopefully someone else may have better ideas on this.

I use remote X, ( it is a bandwidth hog and hence slow, but it works ) to get to a GUI running from a remote box. This is tunnelled thru SSH. But that wouldn't serve your purpose, as you would be starting a new X session instead of accessing the graphical 'console' on the remote box.