[mythtv-users] how do I run mythtv-setup in VNC

Tom Dexter digitalaudiorock at gmail.com
Thu Aug 28 15:45:25 UTC 2008


On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 6:44 AM, mat <mat at lessermatters.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> X forwarding .. I didn't think of that, is that easy to setup
>
> Well, all I know is on my experience on Debian. I just had to install ssh
> and maybe uncomment "allow X forwarding" in the config file
> (/etc/sshd.conf I think)
>
>>
>> What to people use as a X11 client on Windows?
>>
>
> My clients are all linux but I think you can use Cygwin to setup an X11
> client. Good luck with that!
>

I have X11 and X11 forwarding in cygwin working on my XP development
laptop.  I had never tried using mythtv-setup on my backend machine
(not from cygwin that is...I do it from other linux boxes all the
time), but I just did and it works great.  Here's how I set that up
it:

First of all before I get into the cygwin part...a few other things:

As far as enabling X11Forwarding, that has to be set up in the
sshd_config on the backend.  There are a few ways to do it.  You could
just add:

X11Forwarding yes

...I chose to use:

Match User tom
X11Forwarding yes

...for my user.

Also, as far as the screen size of mythtv-setup, I always run:

mythtv-setup -geometry 640x480

...to avoid full screen mode altogether.

As far as cygwin:

In the cygwin setup I installed X11 and rxvt (in order to have a nice
terminal to use).  In my cygwin home directory, I put the following at
the end of my .xinitrc file:

exec rxvt -e /usr/bin/bash -l

Then I created a desktop entry that runs the command:

C:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\startx

That starts an rxvt terminal within X.  From there just do:

ssh -Y <your_backend_user>@<your_backend_machine_or_ip>

...and you should be able to run mythtv-setup just fine.  You'll
likely get a message like:

Warning: No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding.

...because you have no .Xauthority in your cygwin home, but you should
still be able to run mythtv-setup.  If you want to generate a
.Xauthority file, you can run:

xauth generate :0 . trusted

...from within cygwin on the windows machine.

Using ssh in general from within cygwin (not even necessarily from
within X) is awesome.  You can use it to create ssh tunnels etc...for
anyone who wants to get to mythweb from an external windows box
without actually opening up your lan to https etc.  It beats the
living poop out of putty and it's God-awful user interface :D.

Tom


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