# best remote gui method?

## manji_

I have a desktop at home and i want to connect to it with my laptop, to use some programs requiring some kind of graphical interface(such as azureus). I have tried tightvnc, but the thing is that you must already have installed the entire desktop(gnome, kde) you want to use. This is no good for me. Now, i have tried x-forwarding, which is good because it doesn't require the desktop installed, just the x11 and the proper use flags. The thing here is(and correct me if i am wrong) that every application i run, will be running until i close it, or until the connection is lost. Which means that if i close the laptop, tha program stops running. So what i want to ask is, is there any way of remote controlling my desktop without worrying about shutting down the laptop and which requires the minimum of what x-forwarding does?

Thnx in advance

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## masteroftheuniverse

perhaps a compromise, to use a lightweight window manager like fluxbox rather than kde/gnome.  that way you get the remote control thru vnc, no worries of shutting down the laptop, and yet a very small footprint on the home desktop.

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## truc

you might be interested in this thread CLI administrator considering X over DSL

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## Paczesiowa

dont forward X to use azureus, use this: http://azsmrc.sourceforge.net/

I'm also sure that there is frontend for every application that you need to run remotely.

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## timeBandit

 *manji_ wrote:*   

> I have tried tightvnc, but the thing is that you must already have installed the entire desktop(gnome, kde) you want to use.

 

Untrue, VNC works quite nicely without any kind of WM/DE. Simply strip your session startup script (~/.vnc/xstartup) down to the bare minimum, something like so:

```
#!/bin/sh

[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources

xsetroot -solid midnightblue

xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &

twm &
```

The above will launch only an xterm and the bare-bones WM included with X11. If you don't even have or want poor humble little twm, remove the last line and start only an xterm (or two, or three...). (Just be careful not to kill your last terminal if running without a WM.)

Launch additional apps from the xterm with nohup whatever &.

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