How do I display X11 apps from a remote system?

I'm in the process of setting up my new Mac Mini (2.7 GHz dual-core i7 w/ 8 GB RAM
and Mac OS X Lion), and until I get some Tcl/Tk apps working properly, along with
cbb (my checkbook program for almost two decades now), etc., I need to be able to
display them on my Mac, while they're running on my old FreeBSD system.

I tried the following, with no success:

On the Mac: (n5ial-5) xhosts + n5ial-1 (and later, xhosts +)
On FreeBSD (n5ial-1): ./jstrack.tcl -display n5ial-5:0

I also tried other X11 apps, including a simple xterm. Same result.

FreeBSD claimed that there was no such display...but I had
X11 windows open, so the X server WAS definitely there.

How do I get this working?

Thanks,
--jim

Don't know your level of knowledge - so I am just starting with basics. I apologize if it is too simple.

Can you just use ssh with it's auto display forward?

cmd-space -> x11

X11 -> applications terminal

ssh <resolved name of freebsd box>

Once you are logged in - if ssh is setup right - you should be able to start any xapp from the commandline

The command is xhost (no s) - if you do xhost + - that will open the display for anyone to connect - which I think you were alluding to straight xhost +
Plus try an ip address instead of the name - your freebsd box may not be able to qualify n5ial-5 - you can find out by typing
ping n5ial-5
on your freebsd box.

Is ForwardX11 set to yes?

Did you export the display on the BSD system?

DISPLAY=:0.0
export DISPLAY

IvanLasston said:

Don't know your level of knowledge - so I am just starting with basics. I apologize if it is too simple.

Click to expand...

I've been using Unix variants (mostly BSD, except for some old AT&T 3B2 systems)
since the mid-80s, but Mac OS X is strangely different....

IvanLasston said:

Can you just use ssh with it's auto display forward?

Click to expand...

Frankly, you lost me on that one.... I've never done much with ssh to begin with
(except where it was automatic).

IvanLasston said:

The command is xhost (no s) - if you do xhost + - that will open the display for anyone to connect - which I think you were alluding to straight xhost +

Click to expand...

Did I type xhosts? Oh well, blame cancer #1 for that (99% of the time, it IS to
blame---a combination of a VERY harsh chemo drug, Cisplatin, in two different
chemo series, the second of which was high-dose and 24/25 hours per day---24
hours on, 1 hour off, combined with a 2.5 cm tumor---one of three tumors in my
brain at the time, and one of three brain surgeries--in my left occipital lobe, and
frankly, I'm doing good if it's just a simple spelling error....I often find myself
typing words out of order, backwards, bits of one word mixed in with the previous
word, and so on).

And the only reason I tried xhost + is because xhost + n5ial-1 failed. I've run into
Unix variants where xhost + is the ONLY way it works (I think it was an ancient
version of ibm's aix). As for the FreeBSD system recognizing n5ial-5 as a valid
host, the only change is that it's now a Mac Mini instead of a mickeysoft laptop
running X11 under Cygwin (which was almost the only thing that made it useful).

Back to using ssh for X11 remote displays, I have NO idea how to do this. I would
most certainly welcome detailed command-line instructions to run on each system.

Thanks,
--jim

PS: While I'm here.... I have an unrelated question (which I haven't posted as a
new thread so far). When I use vim, less, etc., the text I WAS just viewing
is replaced on exiting with the screen prior to running [whichever]. I remember
that this is either in terminfo or termcap, but the memory of how to fix that went
away with either chemo, one of the three brain surgeries to remove the three
tumors, radiation therapy to the brain, or chemobrain (Cisplatin is notoriously
evil when it comes to chemobrain). Can anyone please tell me how to fix
either terminfo or termcap so that when I exit out of one of these, I still see
the text I was just viewing? I usually want to refer back to that text, and if
it's gone, that's kind of tough to do.

Oh, along the same lines, my keyboard has ALT and CTRL, along with
that Microslop key. Can anyone tell me how to map that to Mac keys
or change copy/paste to <CTRL>C and <CTRL>V, respectively? Again,
I used to know how to do this in my sleep...but then along came cancer #1
(cancer #2 was just a painful post-op week, as it was stage 1 ... cancer #1
on the other hand, was stage 4).

XJ-linux said:

Is ForwardX11 set to yes?

Did you export the display on the BSD system?

DISPLAY=:0.0
export DISPLAY

Click to expand...

I think you misunderstood. That, or I'm missing something.....

The FreeBSD system has no monitor (well, it has a monitor that only works for a
minute, if I'm lucky, before it fails), and it's in another room. It's about to go away
as soon as everything I need from it is moved to my new Mac and working properly.

I was trying to display X11 apps running on the FreeBSD system on the Mac, not
the other way around, just as I did when instead of a Mac, I had a windoze laptop
running Cygwin and XFree86 (under Cygwin). When that laptop was taken out
of the picture and replaced with a Mac, remote display from the FreeBSD system
stopped working.

That is what I'm trying to get help with fixing.

Thanks,
--jim