Using the Xming X server to display graphical programs

To display graphical applications from a Linux computer (such as the VSC clusters) on your Windows desktop, you need to install an X Window server. Here we describe the installation of Xming, one such server and freely available.

Installing Xming

  1. Download the Xming installer from the Xming web site.

  2. Either install Xming from the Public Domain Releases (free) or from the Website Releases (after a donation) on the website.

  3. Run the Xming setup program on your Windows desktop. Make sure to select ‘XLaunch wizard’ and ‘Normal PuTTY Link SSH client’.

    Xming installation

Running Xming:

  1. To run Xming, select XLaunch from the Start Menu.

  2. Select ‘Multiple Windows’. This will open each application in a separate window.

    Xming display settings

  3. Select ‘Start no client’ to make XLaunch wait for other programs (such as PuTTY).

    Xming session type

  4. Select ‘Clipboard’ to share the clipboard.

    Xming clipboard

  5. Finally save the configuration.

    Xming save

  6. Now Xming is running … and you can launch a graphical application in your PuTTY terminal. Do not forget to enable X11 forwarding as explained on our PuTTY page. To test the connection, you can try to start a simple X program on the login nodes, e.g., xterm or xeyes. The latter will open a new window with a pair of eyes. The pupils of these eyes should follow your mouse pointer around. Close the program by typing \”ctrl+c": the window should disappear. If you get the error ‘DISPLAY is not set’, you did not correctly enable the X-Forwarding.