Seeking remote Emacs recommendations

Seeking remote Emacs recommendations

[Jeff Clough]

Hello!

I'm wondering what people's recommendations are for approaches,
packages, and configurations for running Emacs on a remote GNU/Linux
system and displaying/interacting with that Emacs via Windows 10. I know
there are several ways to accomplish this (or used to be), but I don't
want to bark up an outdated or inefficient tree. Since this has *got* to
be a common need around here, I figured at least one person on the list
would have The Answer.

Various and sundry details of my setup/needs are in the PS.

Thanks!

Jeff

PS...

I have several pieces of Windows-only proprietary software which I
*must* run for my business. Half of these work OK under Wine, most of
the rest have minor instabilities, but one falls over and dies with
alarming regularity. So, Windows 10 Professional is and must remain my
main OS for now.

I also have a machine running Ubuntu 22.04 (desktop) which mostly just
sits around.

This is all on a small, glorified home network where I can set
consistent IP addresses and change any and all settings and software
packages as needed (minus the software dependencies I mentioned above,
of course).

All this said, my main work environment is Emacs. I really can't live
without Org, Gnus, and BBDB at this point. I have all of this *mostly*
working under Windows but I keep running into little...glitches. Most of
these are heisenbugs, and all of them are the sorts of things I've
always seen when running Emacs outside of a *nix environment.

I'm thinking at this point that it might be easier to run Emacs on the
Ubuntu system and display it remotely on Windows. In the Elder Days, I would
have done this via X, and maybe FTP to move files between machines as
needed. This is probably an insane thing to do in 2023.

So, what do *you* do?

Re: Seeking remote Emacs recommendations

[Manuel Giraud via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

Hi,

I would say that you have two (and a half) options:

  1. Use Emacs on Windows and report the heisenbugs when you have
     time/motivation.  I think that Emacs should work on Windows and
     your reports (when fixed) will benefit to many.
     
  2. Use the OS you have most of your files, programs, configurations,
     mails, whatever on.  If it is Ubuntu then use Emacs here and
     connect to Windows via Remote Desktop Protocol (you can even share
     files from your linux system with it).  If it is Windows, I'd setup
     a VNC server on Ubuntu and use a VNC client to connect from Windows
     and use Emacs.

Note: From an avid Emacs user point of view, this last option would be
the most frustrating I guess but the "middle ground" would not be so
bad.
-- 
Manuel Giraud

Re: Seeking remote Emacs recommendations

[Sebastian Miele]

> From: Jeff Clough <jeff@jeffclough.net>
> Date: Sat, 2023-08-05 09:16 -0400
>
> I'm wondering what people's recommendations are for approaches,
> packages, and configurations for running Emacs on a remote GNU/Linux
> system and displaying/interacting with that Emacs via Windows 10. I know
> there are several ways to accomplish this (or used to be), but I don't
> want to bark up an outdated or inefficient tree. Since this has *got* to
> be a common need around here, I figured at least one person on the list
> would have The Answer.

I never tried any of that, but my first guess would be to try WSL
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux).  An
internet search for "emacs windows subsystem for linux" gives several
results.

Re: Seeking remote Emacs recommendations

[Basile Starynkevitch]

On 8/5/23 15:16, Jeff Clough wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I'm wondering what people's recommendations are for approaches,
> packages, and configurations for running Emacs on a remote GNU/Linux
> system and displaying/interacting with that Emacs via Windows 10. I know
> there are several ways to accomplish this (or used to be), but I don't
> want to bark up an outdated or inefficient tree. Since this has *got* to
> be a common need around here, I figured at least one person on the list
> would have The Answer.


An indirect possibility would involve the libonion software. It is a C & 
C++ open source library providing HTTP service. One of the demo runs a 
terminal emulator inside a web browser (which could be your web browser 
running on Windows). That terminal probably can run GNU emacs (but I 
leave you to test it).

See https://www.coralbits.com/libonion/


NB. My pet open source project is the RefPerSys inference engine 
(GPLv3+) on http://refpersys.org/ and 
https://github.com/RefPerSys/RefPerSys/ - contributors are welcome.

-- 
Basile Starynkevitch                  <basile@starynkevitch.net>
(only mine opinions / les opinions sont miennes uniquement)
92340 Bourg-la-Reine, France
web page: starynkevitch.net/Basile/

Re: Seeking remote Emacs recommendations

[John Carter via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

In your case I'd install a windows VM hosted on Linux. Last time I tested
it worked better that way round. I then have best of both worlds. I use KVM
and virtual manager.

I arrange for a shared drive between the two.

On Sun, 6 Aug 2023, 1:17 am Jeff Clough, <jeff@jeffclough.net> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I'm wondering what people's recommendations are for approaches,
> packages, and configurations for running Emacs on a remote GNU/Linux
> system and displaying/interacting with that Emacs via Windows 10. I know
> there are several ways to accomplish this (or used to be), but I don't
> want to bark up an outdated or inefficient tree. Since this has *got* to
> be a common need around here, I figured at least one person on the list
> would have The Answer.
>
> Various and sundry details of my setup/needs are in the PS.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jeff
>
> PS...
>
> I have several pieces of Windows-only proprietary software which I
> *must* run for my business. Half of these work OK under Wine, most of
> the rest have minor instabilities, but one falls over and dies with
> alarming regularity. So, Windows 10 Professional is and must remain my
> main OS for now.
>
> I also have a machine running Ubuntu 22.04 (desktop) which mostly just
> sits around.
>
> This is all on a small, glorified home network where I can set
> consistent IP addresses and change any and all settings and software
> packages as needed (minus the software dependencies I mentioned above,
> of course).
>
> All this said, my main work environment is Emacs. I really can't live
> without Org, Gnus, and BBDB at this point. I have all of this *mostly*
> working under Windows but I keep running into little...glitches. Most of
> these are heisenbugs, and all of them are the sorts of things I've
> always seen when running Emacs outside of a *nix environment.
>
> I'm thinking at this point that it might be easier to run Emacs on the
> Ubuntu system and display it remotely on Windows. In the Elder Days, I
> would
> have done this via X, and maybe FTP to move files between machines as
> needed. This is probably an insane thing to do in 2023.
>
> So, what do *you* do?
>
>

-- 

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Re: Seeking remote Emacs recommendations

[hw]

On Sat, 2023-08-05 at 09:16 -0400, Jeff Clough wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I'm wondering what people's recommendations are for approaches,
> packages, and configurations for running Emacs on a remote GNU/Linux
> system and displaying/interacting with that Emacs via Windows 10.> [..]
> 
> I'm thinking at this point that it might be easier to run Emacs on the
> Ubuntu system and display it remotely on Windows. In the Elder Days, I would
> have done this via X, and maybe FTP to move files between machines as
> needed. This is probably an insane thing to do in 2023.
> 
> So, what do *you* do?

I wouldn't use Ubuntu but Fedora (or Debian).  You can either set up
xrdp or screen sharing.  Xrdp is a persistent service and may require
configuration.  Screen sharing in a gnome session can be enabled
through the settings (by the user sitting at the screen:
Sharing-->Remote Desktop).  Debian may be too old for that.

Do not use VNC because that can be unusably slow; use RDP.

And of course you can always ssh into the computer running emacs and
run it in a tmux session.

[1] may also helpful, it allows you to share keyboard and trackball
between computers.  If you have their displays side by side it's as if
the displays were connected to the same machine.

However, perhaps you can as well run emacs on Debian and run your
Windows instances as virtual machines on the same machine.  You can
also use Fedora for that, but at least in theory, Debian is supposedly
more stable than Fedora.  And switching from Ubuntu to Debian may
require less learning than switching to Fedora.


[1]: https://github.com/debauchee/barrier/releases