If I understand correctly, Synology has a package management system with which you can add SVN without much fuss. Have you looked at that? Or do you plan to experiment with SVN on a different distro first?

That's fine, but again if you want to learn Linux, you need to be open to learning different things. You don't seem to be open even to the IDEA of not having a whole desktop, just to do a few things that you may need a GUI for.

Server or not, you just do not need an entire desktop to manage a Linux system. Again, if you're moving from Windows you probably are just 'used to' HAVING to do things a certain way. You aren't bound by that any longer.

It's just as easy to say that your not interested in even the idea of having a whole desktop. I don't know why you feel that a desktop is a negative thing.

I will be specific, I'm only trying to learn enough linux to do builds. I may swap to ssh at some point, but I like desktops. It's just a personal preference.

If the Linux machine is the client, then I'd say it wants to connect to the Windows Server, and not the other way round.
Sadly, not many people know about Windows servers round here... ohterwise I'd recommend SSH.

The "whole desktop" IS just an application running.

That's a key part of the learning journey.

I wasn't specific on this one.

The Linux machine (Linux Mint) that I want to connect to is a virtual machine (guest) in Virtualbox. That is hosted on a windows 10 machine. That physical machine is separate from the Windows 10 machine where I do my development work (in windows). Having a large monitor, I wanted (and now have) my Linux Mint desktop session on my Windows 10 machine where I do my development.

In other words, it's

Windows 10 Host (Linux Mint Guest) <-RDP to Linux Mint- Windows 10 development machine

So far, this has worked very well.

Not necessarily negative, but it's totally unnecessary. Aside from the security implications, it's overkill. You *COULD* drive a 30 foot cargo truck around as your daily driver. Why? Well...you MIGHT need to haul something at some point, but 99.x% of the time it's totally pointless. This is the same sort of thing.
No problem at all, but my whole point is that you're not really learning Linux then...you're just using a different GUI than Windows. Glad you got things working.

Ok, I'll give it a shot.

Your saying use SSH, but I honestly am not sure what that actually means? I'm currently RDP'ing to the VirtualBox host, which just makes the entire desktop in Linux available.

How would you do the connectivity? I'm doing developemnt, so basically I'm doing a web browser, two text editors, and one or two terminals. At this point I'm mostly just trying to get base SVN to build.

That's fine, and if that's what you want go for it. SSH is a network protocol, like RDP, VNC, Telnet, FTP, etc., etc., etc....it is probably the most versatile, since it provides terminal connectivity (the command-line), file transfer via SFTP and SCP, and is able to provide GUI applications through X forwarding.

How the Linux 'desktop' works, is that an X windows server is running on your Linux system...the windows are drawn on it, via the various programs/toolkits/whatever-it-was-written-in. If you SSH (an example would be "ssh -X user@hostname"), you will get prompted to log in. Once you do, you have a command line. You are now connected to the server, and can do ANYTHING you can do on the desktop. If you run Firefox, it will DISPLAY on your local system...but be RUNNING on the Linux system. Same GUI, same window, same everything...WITHOUT the need for the entire Linux desktop.
If you're trying to implement an SVN server on Mint, there are pretty easy tutorials...and most use the command line/terminal:
https://www.itzgeek.com/how-tos/linu...x-mint-17.html

The main thing is to be comfortable; if you deal better with a full GUI, go for it...but just be aware that SSH is pretty much the 'standard' way of doing things. But progress as you are comfortable with.

An NAS is by definition a server, very specialized but still a server. Does it even have a graphical desktop functional on it?

As has already been said, a full desktop is not necessarily needed. One or more terminals on your workstation each with an ssh session with X running would give you about the same functionality without having to add a graphical desktop to the server.

Also, development should be done purely on your workstation, complete with testing, because the server would not need any of the development tools if it is to remain purely a server and not become a workstation. The software would only need to be placed on the server for release (possibly for beta testing as well if you cannot set up a similar environment on a VM ).
I am not sure what you are saying here. It seems that you are doing development on the win machine but going through the linux vm then back to windows to do so. If that is true then you are not truly using linux for your development.

Learning linux requires that you actually use it, and with the plethora of development tools available it is plenty powerful for the most severe of development environments. Micro$oft, OTOH, limits what you have available or charges $$$ for their tools. Any application written in a M$ environment is not compatible to run on a linux OS so I am not certain what your end goal is. Is it to write an SVN tool that resides and functions on linux? or is it simply to develop an SVN tool to run on Win and access files on the NAS. Those are very different goals and you need to be clear on the path before you start development.

Also, as a side note, I believe there are already several SVN tools available for linux that you can use, peruse the source, and build your improvements upon. A quick google search for "svn tools on linux" gives many results. With FOSS software you can get the source code and make whatever mods you wish.

When you open up the virtualbox machine and run the linux mint VM, that VM window IS the desktop of the linux machine. Apparently you don't thoroughly understand how a VM works or I don't understand what you are doing. RDP is not at all required from the Windows machine that hosts the VM.

There are two windows 10 machines.

One machine hosts the VM's inside of Virtualbox. It is a 'headless' machine, it doesn't have a monitor attached.

The second Windows machine, which has the large monitor, is not the machine with the VM's hosted.

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I'm familiar with X forwarding, I did a project years ago where we had the linux app visible on the desktop remotely from the server it ran on. It was rather cool to be honest.


But can I get the same on the Windows machine -> Linux machine? I'm assuming I have to run something on the Windows box?


Again, I wasn't specific.

I have a Synology NAS. It has SVN loaded, but, the SVN package for Synology is no longer supported. Reading the Synology packaging instructions you build/package on a linux machine (not the target Synolgoy machine).

So, my goal is to download SVN source, build it, package it for Synology. I think in the linux world this is what a 'package maintainer' does?


I appreciate the help, clarification. My major hold up in the primary workstations in Windows, for work. It's my daily work machine which is in windows... so, if it helps the explanation, I'm a windows developer in my "day" job.

That should explain the unusual setup. I have to run the VM on my personal workstation, not the corporate laptop, but I can *remote* off the corporate laptop so everything ends up on the same big montior.

Attached drawing is a simple example of what the home/work setup is.

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