Running GUI on VPS

For a full desktop experience, you'll probably want to use something along the lines of vncserver, which will execute an X server and allow you to connect to it via VNC. You'll also want to keep network latency and memory in mind: you ain't going to watch Hulu over this, and you probably aren't going to run Firefox in 512 MB of RAM.

If you just need to run one application once in awhile, ssh -X enables X11 forwarding (see man page for caveats). You can then just start your application, wait awhile, and it'll appear on your local X server.

@hoopycat:

For a full desktop experience, you'll probably want to use something along the lines of vncserver, which will execute an X server and allow you to connect to it via VNC.

I used VNC for a couple of years. It works, but seems a bit laggy and latent. I switched to NoMachine's NX, using freenx on Ubuntu for the server and the free NoMachine client locally . It has a quite noticeably snappier response time.

James

Thanks for the feedback.

Does anyone have any guides on carry out this task?

I've had looked but struggled to find any which relate to CentOS 6.

Haven't used CentOS since the 4.x days, but a quick Google for "VNC CentOS 6" found this, which seems plausible:

http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/VNC-Server

Also, remember that you'll need to install some sort of desktop environment Otherwise, you'll just get a dithered grey screen with a big × cursor and maybe – maybe – an xterm. Among the "Big Three" (GNOME, KDE, and XFCE), I'd recommend XFCE. There's one XFCE machine here at the ranch, and it looks like it would comfortably fit in 512 MB. My freshly-rebooted netbook with gnome+metacity would not.

(Note: it's my wife's computer, and she closed all applications/browsers before heading out of town for the weekend… all bets are off once you start Chrome. She also didn't apt-get upgrade… or empty the dishwasher, orCLANG --- where the heck did that frying pan come from)

I used XFCE a few months ago. I'm sure it would fit comfortable within 512MB, but it seems like it would still be a tad more laggy on VNC than something like Fluxbox. Of course, using VNC, anything would probably lag, though Fluxbox would probably have a bit less lag. It's not as full-featured as XFCE, though, but a full-featured desktop isn't what you need for a server.