Now that we know the theory of how this all works, it's time to do some practice. We're going to do some simple things as the environment is a complex one and we could be at this for some time if we go the 'complex' route.

For the sake of these examples, assume we have two machines, porkey and bodger. They are connected on the same network. Now they both run X Window servers and want to begin to display client applications. If porkey wants to display xclock on bodger, it can be done as follows:

xclock -display bodger:0.0
            

Now provided bodger has given porkey access to display the client application with the command:

xhost +
            

xclock will pop up on bodger. Similarly, displaying xeyes on porkey from bodger is simply a matter of:

xeyes -display porkey:0.0
            

It is beyond the scope of this course to go into the :0.0 and the xhost stuff, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Thus, in the case of the xeyes application, it is executing on bodger, but instead of using bodgers own X server to display it, bodger is using porkey's X server to display it. Now try that on Windows!

For more information on X11 and the X Window client/server system, consult the HOWTO's on www.tldp.org.