Pull gui emacs across an ssh connection

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

I know this subject has come up many times but I'm getting confused by
the google hits more than helped.

For yrs I've connected to remote machines and ran the on host emacs
via ssh connection.  Sometime connecting with with emacs to the remote
host with tramp.  But I've never really tried to make the remote emacs
run in gui form on the local display..  Just using emacs as -nw when
using ssh.

I'm running gentoo linux on a home lan with opensolaris and windows
hosts present.  What variables need to be in place to run the emacs
installed on the remote... and make it appear in gui format on my
local desktop. (I'm not taking about involving windows machines in
this) 

I know about permitting X in ssh_config and sshd_config  or even with
the ssh cmdline -X but as I recall other things need to be adjusted
too.

And too, is it even worthwhile doing, like is it annoyingly slow or
something?  I have gigabit lan in most cases and 10/100 is the slowed
that might come up.  And it is a very low usage lan.

Can someone walk me through that kind of connection?