Using X locally

First, you need to install the X client libraries for whatever distribution you're using. If your package manager will automatically install dependencies, you can just install xterm and it'll bring along all the dependencies.

Second, X is fairly bandwidth-intensive. Rather than running GNOME on your Linode, you might consider just running the specific X app that you need. At a minimum, you should keep a close eye on your bandwidth usage if you run remote X a lot.

For SSH, your particular SSH client should have an option for X11 forwarding; I know PuTTY does.

Then, you just log in with X11 forwarding and run the command from the command line, and the program displays locally on your PC.

On my Linode, I run the VNC server when I need an X desktop. The external VNC port is firewalled; I use SSH to forward a VNC connection from my local machine to the Linode's loopback (127.0.0.1) interface using the "-L 5901:127.0.0.1:5901" option.

The nice thing about VNC is that you can break the connection and reconnect at any time (or even reconnect from elsewhere).

@rjp:

The nice thing about VNC is that you can break the connection and reconnect at any time (or even reconnect from elsewhere).
You are supposed to be able to do that with Xmove as well.

It is a native X solution

Bill Clinton