desktop manager & no local xserver (xdmcp only). Possibl

[mikeh]

First off.... Been listening to the show for over a year now. Really enjoy it.

I tried asking this question over on Ubuntu's forum, but it seems either hard to do, or hard to answer. Thought I would make my first post here, and see if anyone here could help.

Is it possible to only run a desktop manager on a box that only allows xdmcp connections to it with no actual GUI running on the box itself?

The above description is probably confusing (it is for me!) so I will try to describe the setup for the above.

I have a box running a server install of xubuntu. I don't have any X server running on it (no gdm, no desktop managers yet,etc). It is basically a command line box running a bare minimum setup. I am using it as a file server (samba) for a bunch of systems on my network. (Linux, OS X and even an XP box). I am also running ccxstream on it so it allows my xbox to view videos and pictures stored on it.

It is a fairly beefy box, but I have it in a closet with another linux box running smoothwall.

Anyway this file server has no keyboard, mouse, or monitor plugged into it. I access it currently with ssh.

I would like to have access to KDE/XFCE/GNOME from my main desktop PC in my study (a dual powermac g5). Supposedly I can run Apples X11 client and connect to remote desktop managers running xdmcp and run applications off that box with the display being done by the xserver on the OS X box.

I am curious if it is possible to run gdm and a desktop manager on the Linux box, but not have it worry about running the actual xserver on the Linux box? Just allow remote connections from other computers over XDMCP.

Not concerned about speed on the clients. Just looking to be able to run some Linux X11 apps on the G5 with XDMCP to play with some of the various desktops available on Linux.

I just don't have the room in the study to put a second box running Linux, and I don't want to run Ubuntu on the G5 itself since it doesn't seem very stable on the dual G5.

Is this possible? Any advice or links on how to make something like this happen? I am assuming i need to install gdm and have it only look for remote connections, and not try to access a local x server or do any graphical setup on the local linux box or try to communicate with the mouse,etc.