KDE Desktop [plug] X forwarding SOLVED

[Craig Ringer]

Marc Wiriadisastra wrote:

> I tried it a different way and it seemed to work.
> 
> ssh -X $REMOTE_HOST_IP
> 
> #startkde
> 
> in two separate commands and it loaded up.

That's rather strange. You may need to specify the full path to startkde 
when running straight from ssh (as your shell's profile etc may not be 
loaded). I suppose it's posible you might need to use a wrapper script 
to set the PATH then call startkde too.

If it's not a PATH issue ... no idea.

> What would that happen.

Why would that happen?

See above.

> Whats happened now is that it has combined both desktops to my desktop? 
>  As in I can see my original desktop as well as the X-servers.

Yes, that is the expected behaviour. You can only have one window 
manager per X server, for one thing, so if a local one is running, the 
remote one won't start. Other components of the desktop will usually 
start but overlay your existing session. While that's normal, it's 
probably not what you wanted.

If you want two separate desktops start your remote session on a 
different X server. You'll want either Xnest or a second "native" 
server. If you start a second native server it will start on the next 
free tty - in a fairly standard configuration you can switch between 
them using CTL-ALT-F7 and CTL-ALT-F8.

Examples:

New native server, run from console (eg tty01, CTL-ALT-F1), will not 
work without ssh-agent and key-based auth (unless you can persuade ssh 
to take keyboard input when run from startx):

      startx /usr/bin/ssh -X $REMOTE_HOST $STARTKDE_PATH -- :1

Xnest, run from existing X session, otherwise as above including 
authentication limitation:

     startx `which Xnest` -X $REMOTE_HOST $STARTKDE_PATH -- :1

Xnest, manual method, may require changes to get functional authentication:

     Xnest :1 >&/tmp/xnest.log &
     export DISPLAY=:1
     ssh -X $REMOTE_HOST $STARTKDE_PATH

New native server with just an xterm (requires `xterm' to be on your 
PATH) so you can manually ssh out to start your session:
     startx `which xterm` -- :1

--
Craig Ringer