HI, I am a complete novice in using Linux I wanted to use emacs after doing telnet to a remote server but i keep on getting this message: xhost:unable to open display "localhost.localdomain:0.0" Display is localhost.localdomain:0.0 what do i have to do to configure my system so that i can use emacs after telnet(ing) to a remote server. Please help, need this urgent. Beniam

you should set the environment variable "DISPLAY" to your localhost and then add ":0.0" to mean the first display of that host. then you can run an mwm directly and every application. to actuate this connection the host machine should be allowing remote desktop connection, you can disable the guard by issuing the command "xhost +" before. take care that the command is user-related.

Yes, once you telnet in, enter this at the command prompt: # export DISPLAY=10.10.10.1:0.0 Replace 10.10.10.1 with the IP address of the current PC (not the machine you telnetted into). If you are using a Linux machine as the desktop machine, then, as Max said, you need to enter "xhost +" to allow you access to that X server (which is the client; confusing, huh?) Good luck.

Alternatively, instead of telnet use SSH if available, with the "-X" switch it will forward all X applications etc.

Thanks guys for all your help how do i however find the IP address of my machine? when i use ssh -x it appends my username on my local machine to the host domain name and asks me for password. The password that i supply it will be wrong because my local user name is different from the one i have on the host domain i am trying to connect. How do i change my username in order to provide the correct password?

In Linux, to find your IP address, enter "ifconfig" or "ifconfig eth0" for just the info on the first ethernet interface. In Windows, run "winipcfg". Good luck.

Use the -l switch to pass your username. And note the difference in case, -x = X11 forwarding OFF and -X = ON $ ssh -Xl username hostname NB winipcfg only works on windoze 9x boxes. For NT/2000/XP use "ipconfig" instead. If you want to easily find your outwards pointing IP address (as opposed to you internal LAN one), just visit www.whatismyip.com