How to login from putty to xubuntu

Question

I have a cloud server which is running ubuntu server. I have connected to the server with putty. I have installed xubuntu and gdm but do not know how to login into xubuntu from putty terminal.

Any help?

Answer 1

I'm assuming you mean that you want to use graphical applications from the terminal, forgive me if I'm incorrect.

There are many ways to do this. I'm going to assume you mean one of the following:

1. You can log in via ssh and then remotely start gui applications over ssh via X11. One could use this to run gui only apps on a headless machine.

2. You want to log in using a gui, and avoid the terminal altogether.

For the first solution, make sure you can send those protocols over ssh. You'll need to check the ssh config file located at /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Make sure X11 forwarding is on. You'll also need an X server on your windows machine for this to work. I've heard good things about Xming. You can check if X11 forwarding is on by running xclock on the terminal by simply typing xclock, you should see the clock show up on your screen.

If what you want is to log in remotely to a gui without the terminal, you'll need some sort of vnc server on your xubuntu machine. I use vncserver which you can get by running sudo apt-get install vncserver and it does the job, although many people have noted that it lacks appropriate security. If you choose this path, make sure you have the appropriate access over the firewall and that any ports aren't blocked, or that you can tunnel the connection over your ssh port.