Login to Solaris Desktop from Windows Using Cygwin

Cygwin is a great tool for UNIX people stuck in a Windows world as it provides a vast assortment of UNIX tools in a Windows command prompt. One of the most powerful uses of Cygwin is as an X server. While it may be useful occasionally to run a single X application in its own window, that can be boring. As a more exciting option, it is simple (one command) to launch a full Solaris desktop session complete with login screen.


Solaris is already set up to allow remote X logins, so you have no work there. On your Windows box, install Cygwin (if you have not already), and open a Cygwin prompt. Then type the following:

X -broadcast

You should see the login screen of the Sun host (as long as it is on the same subnet).

 

About Quinn McHenry

Quinn was one of the original co-founders of Tech-Recipes. He is currently crafting iOS applications as a senior developer at Small Planet Digital in Brooklyn, New York.
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3 Responses to “Login to Solaris Desktop from Windows Using Cygwin”

  1. October 14, 2010 at 3:01 pm, MH said:

    During the installation it gets to the step where you select the download site and doesn’t find any.

    Reply

  2. October 29, 2010 at 1:03 pm, Gsdg said:

    this info is near useless – it doesn’t even tell you to initiated an SSH connection witht the remote host…

    Reply

  3. January 28, 2011 at 1:40 pm, Guest said:

    I was able to install cygwin, and did the
    Xwin -query 999.999.999.999 and i get a big black window

    is there a need to ssh or something before?
    because i haven’t even logged into the sun machine

    Reply

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