Opening web browser on linux virtual machine - linux

I have created a virtual linux machine from amazon web services... the terminal that opens up is the gitbash prompt. I'm trying to open any web browser but I couldnt find a command to do so. I have tried xdg-open, start and several other commands that I came across but they wouldnt work. Please assist me!

The text based lynx is usually installed by default. Otherwise if X-windows is installed and configured, the shell command "startx" will start a GUI session.
But gitbash is tiny and is void of most packages to reduce space...

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Does psexec open a GUI window on the local host and the remote machine?

I've been using psexec for a while to do admin tasks and its very helpful. The other day I was looking at the online help and discovered the "-i" interactive switch so I started messing around with it and doing some research. This website explains the feature this way:
"For example, the following PsExec command will open the notepad.exe process on the remote computer and display it on the local user’s desktop:
psexec -i \\lon-srv01 notepad"
So at first I couldn't get it to work but then I found a few tips that helped and now I can invoke psexec with the "-i" switch from an administrator cmd prompt on my laptop, and use this syntax to launch an application on my workstation remotely.
Working syntax: PsExec.exe -i 5 -s \\<remotePC> regedit
So in this case, regedit launches on the remote machine but not on my local machine. Is my understanding of the interactive feature incorrect? I'm assuming the GUI should load on my local machine as well so I can do admin tasks. Am I wrong? Is the article I quoted wrong?
I'm seeing "interactive" in the documentation and assuming I can interact with the application GUI locally, similar to how I can interact with a linux application like Gedit remotely using a third party app like MobaXterm.
Can someone set me straight here?
Thanks,

How to group application windows launched via 'ssh -X'

When I launch an application locally via its .desktop file, windows are grouped by Gnome.
When I use an identical file, but using ssh -X in the Exec line, to launch the application on a remote machine using X11 forwarding, the application runs fine, but Gnome doesn't group the application windows at all. This is very annoying.
My two problem applications in this regard are emacs and PyCharm. There is widespread advice to set StartupWMClass in the .desktop file, but this doesn't solve the problem.
Can anyone help, please?

Shared folder between Windows host and Ubuntu guest, long filenames

I'm setting up an Ubuntu guest under Windows using VirtualBox for a colleague to provide him with a Linux-based development environment for a node.js application.
This colleague of mine can't or doesn't want to SSH into the VM and work in emacs or vim; he's a Sublime Text guy. So I have set up the project tree in a VirtualBox shared folder so he can access it from Windows (to edit) and the Linux VM (to build/test).
Unfortunately, npm install fails with file system errors. The problem seems to be extremely long path names resulting from deeply nested node_modules dependencies. I'm guessing we're hitting a Windows limit on filename length. The npm install works just fine in a regular (non-shared) directory in the VM.
Does anyone have ideas about how to deal with this problem? One idea I had was to somehow alias or link $MY_PROJECT/node_modules to another, non-shared location, but I can't figure out how to do that.
Update: I'm going to try this hack: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/11976.
Update 2: Ended up using samba, which is probably what I should have done in the first place.
One option is to use one of the multiple ways for sublime to edit remote files over ssh, covered in some detail here
How to use Sublime over SSH
Another is try using the native windows version of node and have your colleague develop locally directly under windows.

open Teamviewer on a Debian machine via PuTTY on a Windows machine

hope everyone is doing well.
Got an issue I would like to pick the great brains in this forum about.
So, I have many Debian machines I often remote into using Teamviewer and a Windows machine, which works out great; however Teamviewer crashes for what appears to be no apparent reason. When such happens, normally I will PuTTY into the suspect Debian machine from a Windows 7 machine and issue the shutdown -r now command. When the debian computer reboots, so does Teamviewer and the suspect Debian machine is now visible in the "My computers" list on my Windows machine.
My question is this, why cant I just type teamviewer from the command line while PuTTYing into the Debian machine and have Teamviewer reopen on the Debian machine, making it visible in "My computers?" When I execute teamviewer command from PuTTY command line, I see the verbose output of teamviewer opening, but the machine never becomes visible in "My computers."
Now, I know it is possible to start Teamviewer remotely and have it show up back in 'My computers" list. I can do it via NoMachine; I simply connect to the suspect Debian machine and double click on the Teamviewer desktop launcher. However, NoMachine is very heavy and quite frankly, i just don't like it. I also know I can execute teamviewer via command line while sitting in front of the suspect Debian machine. PuTTY would be so much faster.
I have also tried VNC as well as X sessions. In both cases, i can open Teamviewer and it shows up in "My computers," but when I close the VNC of X, Teamviewer also closes and removes itself from "My computers."
Can someone help me figure out a way to restart Teamviewer via PuTTY please? Is there a way to open a desktop launcher via PuTTYs command line? Or is there a way to tell Teamviewer to execute in the suspect Debian machines active desktop session via PuTTYs command line?
Thanks all

Attach/Detach to a remote instance of Eclipse

When using Eclipse over X-Windows on a remote shell (X port forwarding), is there a way to simply detach my X connection and come back to the process later. For a little more clarity, I'm on a Windows machine and have to reboot. I'd like to keep Eclipse running and come back where I left off. Eclipse is running on my Windows machine through an X-Server connected to a Linux box.
I'm thinking something like tmux could do the trick. However, I do a Ctrl-Z to stop Eclipse and it won't close the Eclipse Window. If I restart the X-Server in Windows, Eclipse fails when I try fg 1. Any other options?
Xpra did everything that I needed, but it was not clear exactly how it worked. I was able to get it working by opening two PuTTY sessions in windows, one server and one client. Also, the Google Code is out-dated. Instead, install from http://xpra.devloop.org.uk/dists/xpra-0.0.7.9.tar.bz2. I'm not sure how it's different, but it worked for me. The README tells how to build the package. It is necessary to apt-get a bunch of other stuff. But, here are the missing pieces on how to get it work as I describe above:
Setup server:
cd ~/download/xpra/xpra-0.0.7.9
export PYTHONPATH=$PWD/install/lib/python:$PYTHONPATH
./install/bin/xpra start :10
export DISPLAY=:10
xterm&
Setup client:
cd ~/download/xpra/xpra-0.0.7.9
export PYTHONPATH=$PWD/install/lib/python:$PYTHONPATH
./install/bin/xpra attach :10
Notes:
The Windows xpra installer is not needed for this configuration. I don't know what it's supposed to do.
Be sure to run Xming on Windows.
Be sure to enable X port forwarding on the client PuTTY window.
Launch whatever you want from the xterm window. (ie Eclipse)
You can close the server window once xterm is up.
Hit ctrl-c in the client window to detach from the session.
Do all the client commands again to re-attach..even after restarting PuTTY, the Xming, or Windows itself.
I have zero experience with it, but xpra sounds like exactly what you're looking for.

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