How can I connect to a Windows desktop from my Linux PC?

RDESKTOP

USE RDESKTOP TO CONNECT REMOTELY TO WINDOWS XP

If you're working in a cross-platform environment and use both Windows

and Linux, there's a fast and easy way to obtain a remote connection to

your Windows system from Linux.

Previously, the only real way to do this was by using virtual network

computing (VNC), but now you can use the open source client rdesktop to

connect to Windows. Rdesktop speaks the Remote Desktop Protocol, which is

employed by Windows Terminal Services.

In Windows XP Professional, more than one user can log into Windows at

one time--locally or remotely. Thus, you can use rdesktop to connect to

your Windows system at work when you're at home. To accomplish this in

Windows NT or Windows 2000, you have to purchase a client license.

Rdesktop comes with Mandrake Linux 8.2. MandrakeSoft has written a nice

graphical user interface (GUI) manager to rdesktop called RFBdrake. This

GUI can also be used to connect to other Mandrake Linux systems running

RFBdrake in server mode.

However, you don't need to run Mandrake Linux to use rdesktop. It's

available for free at

use. To connect to a remote Windows machine called "winxp.mylan.com", create

a shell script that automatically launches rdesktop. For example:

#!/bin/sh

rdesktop -u "username" -g 1024x768+0+0 winxp.mylan.com

This will connect to winxp.mylan.com as the user "username" and set the

screen geometry to 1024 x 768, starting at the x and y offsets of 0 on

the screen.