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VcXsrv X server for Windows

📅 2019-May-12 ⬩ ✍️ Ashwin Nanjappa ⬩ 🏷️ windows, wsl, x server ⬩ 📚 Archive

A X server is needed on Windows if you SSH to remote Linux computers and wish to start X or GUI applications from there. It is also necessary if you are working with a Linux distribution running inside Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). VcXsrv is a free open-source X server that can be used for all these purposes.

$ export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0

Launch any X or GUI app and its window should now be displayed in its own individual Windows window.

$ export DISPLAY=your-windows-ip:0.0

When you start XLaunch you may want to choose to Disable access control. Otherwise you may get errors like this:

$ xeyes
Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified
Error: Can't open display: 10.0.0.99:0.0

Tried with: VcXsrv 1.20.1.4 and Ubuntu 18.04 WSL


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