Hi all. I put Slackware on my Mom's computer because I was tired of fixing her windows. I messed with the runlevels and usergroups so it operates as easy as a windows machine. Mostly she uses firefox, email, wordprocessor, spreadsheet.

I might move out of state soon. I am wondering if there is a way to install new programs for her from across state lines? Telnet or something? I have no idea. Can someone tell me what to read? I don't really know where to start.

She doesn't have the root password but even if she did she wouldn't know what to do with it.

You can connect to her machine remotely via ssh . . . very similar to telnet but strongly encrypted. You can install programs for her via the command line and even run X11 applications via x-forwarding.

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Ssh
(of course, ssh, both client and server, are included with slackware. Just "chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/rc.sshd" as root to ensure that the server is started at boot time.)

Edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config on your mother's machine. Make sure that the line . . .
is present.

Post your mom's IP with www.no-ip.org or some similar service.

Now, you can ssh into your mom's box from your machine with a simple command. Or, if you don't set up a hostname.

Either way, if you plan on invoking any GUI apps, you'll want to give her machine permission to create windows on your display before you ssh over there with a command like . . .

If you don't include a username, and just use the command 'ssh host.domain.com', you'll be logging straight in as root.

I hope this helps . . .

Of course, there's always the old phone tech support method. Hehehe

1 members found this post helpful.

There is a simpler way.
There is a program named TeamViewer, it runs via WINE and you can remotely control your mother's computer.
You may access remotely by SSH, but if you need to use GUI you may run TeamViewer remotely then phote to your mother so that can give you the login number (it's allways the same) and the password (4 numbers that are allways different for each session).

In my opinion it's an easier solution if you don't have many knowledge in the use of SSH.

I think I will research foodown's method. Using wine on a Slackware box to remotely update another slackware box seems irreverent to me.

i tunnel vnc through ssh if i really need x... plenty of guides on the net about ssh port forwarding..

I use Alienbob's freenx packages and it works perfectly for me.
It works like windows' remote desktop, but through ssh so it's secure.
Also, unlike windows' remote desktop, there is no limit to the number of concurrent sessions.

Get it here: http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/freenx/
Instructions here: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...d=slackware:nx