Windows to Linux Remote Desktop

Question

I'd like to remote into my Linux (Ubuntu) desktop from a Windows desktop. Of course there is VNC, among others. The trick is that I just want to have a remote session without having any local screen sharing. In other words, when I type and move the mouse on the Windows computer, I don't want that activity to show up on the screen remote Linux system. The Linux box should just sit there at the login prompt or whatever it was doing prior to my remote login.

Answer 1

I used to use nx for this - you'd want to install freenx from the repositories or the 'official' free version of the nomachine server and use the client from the nomachine site to connect to it

In addition to outperforming VNC, it'll start up a seperate, optionally persistant remote access session

Alternately you could find a windows X client (i'd suggest mobaxterm ) and connecting over xdmcp.

Answer 2

I'm aware of two ways you can do that:

1. Install a VNC server on the Linux box which functions as or launches its own X server rather than puppeting the one attached to the main display.

2. Install Cygwin/X or Xming (thanks, jcrawfordor) and use X11's network-transparent design to run your remoted applications locally. It's a little less obvious how to do it, but it'll let you mix local Windows apps and remote Linux apps in the same desktop as if they were all local Windows apps.