Re:Emacs is special regarding UIs
by toast0 on Thursday September 10, 2020 @02:19PM
(#24435068)
> There's nothing like X forwarding on Windows to my knowledge.
You can run an X server on Windows, there's a bunch to choose from. That lets you run an application on a remote unix system and show it on a Windows system in front of the user. It might be nice to run an application on a remote windows system, but that's always tied to expensive licenses; some of those systems sound like they could be pretty seamless (at least as seamless as remote X), but I don't have experience with them.
Remote X has its problems, but it enables a lot of use cases with a minimum amount of hassle. Connect, run the application, close it when you're done. Other solutions with a remote desktop require starting that session somehow, and either leaving it running or shutting it down somehow. That can be useful if you want a long running session, but is more hassle if you don't.
You can run an X server on Windows, there's a bunch to choose from. That lets you run an application on a remote unix system and show it on a Windows system in front of the user. It might be nice to run an application on a remote windows system, but that's always tied to expensive licenses; some of those systems sound like they could be pretty seamless (at least as seamless as remote X), but I don't have experience with them.
Remote X has its problems, but it enables a lot of use cases with a minimum amount of hassle. Connect, run the application, close it when you're done. Other solutions with a remote desktop require starting that session somehow, and either leaving it running or shutting it down somehow. That can be useful if you want a long running session, but is more hassle if you don't.