To my surprise, I found that Xming was specifically suited to my needs. It acts as an X11 server, allowing me to use it to display my X11 applications that I have forwarded through SSH. It works perfectly.

It took a little time for setting up, but if you have got PuTTY installed and working, sixty percent of the work is already done.

Below is a screen shot that shows my running Windows Vista desktop, programming in Quanta which is actually hosted on a server called A. This is connected through an SSH tunnel from my laptop to my C server using the Putty client. From the C server, I launch the Quanta program using another SSH connection to the A server. It looks just like the Quanta program is a native windows app on the local Windows Vista desktop. You’ll also notice I’ve got an xterm session open connected to server A in the background.


Option "TwinViewOrientation" "CRT-0 RightOf TV"


The best source of information is here and here. All of the other forums posts are pages upon pages of people struggling with other problems. Fortunately the official TwinView documentation is top-notch.

Below are the contents of my entire xorg.conf now:


# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder3) Wed Sep 12 14:29:35 PDT 2007

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf(5) manual page.
# (Type “man xorg.conf” at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen 0 “Default Screen” 0 0
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “Configured Mouse”
InputDevice “stylus” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “cursor” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “eraser” “SendCoreEvents”
EndSection

Section “Files”

# path to defoma fonts
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1″
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi”
FontPath “/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType”
EndSection

Section “Module”
Load “i2c”
Load “bitmap”
Load “ddc”
Load “extmod”
Load “freetype”
Load “int10″
Load “vbe”
Load “glx”
Load “v4l”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Generic Keyboard”
Driver “kbd”
Option “CoreKeyboard”
Option “XkbRules” “xorg”
Option “XkbModel” “pc105″
Option “XkbLayout” “us”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Protocol” “ImPS/2″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “stylus”
Driver “wacom”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “stylus”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “eraser”
Driver “wacom”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “eraser”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “cursor”
Driver “wacom”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “cursor”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “VA1912wb”
DisplaySize 1440 900
HorizSync 30.0 – 82.0
VertRefresh 50.0 – 85.0
ModeLine “1440×900_70.00″ 127.0 1440 1536 1688 1936 900 901 904 937 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1440×900_60.00″ 106.5 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -hsync +vsync
Option “DPMS”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
#
Identifier “monitor1″
Gamma 1
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “Generic Video Card”
Driver “nvidia”
VendorName “NVIDIA”
BoardName “NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
Screen 0
Option “ConnectedMonitor” “TV,CRT”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “Generic Video Card”
Monitor “VA1912wb”
DefaultDepth 24
Option “TwinView”
Option “TwinViewOrientation” “CRT-0 RightOf TV”
Option “TVOutFormat” “SVIDEO”
Option “TVStandard” “NTSC-M”
Option “MetaModes” “1440×900,640×480; 1440×900,NULL; 1024×768,NULL; 800×600,NULL; 640×480,NULL”
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1440×900_70.00″ “1440×900_60.00″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “Enable”
EndSection