Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Virtual Network Computers

Through the Virtual Network Computer (VNC) system, you can log into a remote Mac OS X machine from another computer, launch an application on the remote Mac OS X machine, and have the application display on your local machine. The local machine can be running the X Window System, Microsoft Windows, or another platform supported by VNC.

VNC consists of two components: a VNC server (which must be installed on the remote machine) and a VNC viewer (which is used on the local machine to view and control applications running on the remote machine). The VNC connection is made through a TCP/IP connection.

The VNC server and viewer may not only be on different machines, but can also be installed on different operating systems. This allows you to, for example, connect from Solaris to Mac OS X and launch and run Aqua applications on Mac OS X, but view and control them from your Solaris box. VNC can be installed on Mac OS X with the Fink package manager (look for the vnc package), but that version (the standard Unix version of the VNC server) supports only running X11 programs, not Aqua applications. VNC translates X11 calls into the VNC protocol. All you need on the client machine is a VNC viewer.

Alternatively, OSXvnc is an Aqua-aware VNC server, available from http://www.osxvnc.com. OSXvnc is installed by downloading, unpacking, and mounting the disk image, and then dragging the OSXvnc folder to the /Applications folder.

Of the two, OSXvnc is more experimental, ...