I am now using VNC (Virtual Network Computing) for my X-Windows dialup from home rather than eXceed or any other X server running on a PC. It makes much more efficient use of bandwidth than X.

You can get VNC clients and servers for Windows and Unix from for free. Try it out.

How it works:

You run a `vncserver' on your desktop Unix box in the office. You dialin and establish a TCP connection. You run a `vncviewer' client on your home machine. It fires up a [fullscreen] X desktop which you can run your favourite window manager in (twm, dtwm(cde), fvwm2 etc)

The `vncserver' on your desktop machine creates an X `display'; i.e., normally you fire applications up with DISPLAY=localhost:0 but to send them down the VNC pipe, you set DISPLAY=localhost:1 (or whatever other number you specified on the `vncserver' command line). The server acts as if it were an X display to all your applications (xterms, XEmacs, netscape, etc., etc.) and broadcasts the VNC protocol on port 5901 (or 590X for other display numbers).

First time you run the server it creates a ~/.vnc directory with some settings including an xstartup file (which starts up some xterms and a window manager). Modify it to your taste. It also asks you to register a password which is required by clients trying to connect.

The `vncviewer' on your home machine just asks you for a machine to connect to (once you have dialed-up and are on the network), so you would type kilda:1 or whatever. Then you enter the password you registered when you first fired up the server.

You just leave the server running all the time, it's secure.

Here's the best part:

If you disconnect / hangup, and reconnect, and fire up `vncviewer' again to connect to the same kilda:1, all your windows and applications come up just as they were when you left them. I've been trying to get something like this to work forever.

You could keep your Unix box in a cupboard at work and just have your laptop on your desk, running VNC to your unix as your daily office desktop interface, running CDE/dtwm if you want. You pack up, go home with your laptop, dial up and reconnect. Everything pops up, your XEmacs edit cursor is blinking just where you left it...

When you really want to `log out' that desktop you run vncserver -kill :1 (or whatever the display number you chose was). You can have multiple ones simultaneously, and you can have `shared' ones if you want to do the 'remote admin' thing where a colleague could be working from home, VNC'D to her Unix server in the office, she has a problem and phones Ye Olde Sysadmin, YOS can run a vncviewer and connect to her server if she gives him her vnc password, and help her out (I haven't tried this so don't know who gets to move the mouse...)

Here's another good thing:

You can have a vnc server on a Windows box as well, so you can effectively have a windows desktop on your Unix box as a vice versa (I dont need this).

Let me know how you get on... I've left some of the detail out as I probably set it and forgot it, but the documentation and FAQ on that web site was fine.

It works great over an SSH too,...