Xming

Pros

• Making it portable is a breeze
• Wonderful free X server
• Comes with MinGW complier suite

Cons

• Extensive programming or IT scholarship pretty much required
• Not as configurable as similar programs
• Paid professional use

Looking for a display server that you can run for free on Windows? Look no further than Xming. This is public display software and will work on Windows as a stand-alone prog. (Meaning that you won't need to use an emulator). It is a fantastic personal use program. But this is not for amateurs, beginners, or dabblers.

Xming is a free X server that has been around for almost 10 years now. Though it does receive the odd update here and there, you might have to take matters into your own hands and gently sculpt it to be up-to-date with your version of Windows. It has is considered a public domain software.

Xming supports a plethora of languages. It'll not only give your display server some fonts but quite a few sample X apps and tools.

It boasts a number of features, such as the much renowned Pthreads-Win32 multi-threading library, Mesa 3D capabilities, and Open GL GLX 3D graphics extensions. It has a MinGW compiler suite and you can use it to run SSH to forward x11 sessions from any of your computers.

This program is based off of Cygwin/X, with the biggest difference being that Xming is less configurable. It is both simpler and easier to install than Cygwin/X. It is free for personal use, and due to the fact that it's considered public domain software, you can update it to make it compatible with your version of Windows.

Pros

• Making it portable is a breeze
• Wonderful free X server
• Comes with MinGW complier suite

Cons

• Extensive programming or IT scholarship pretty much required
• Not as configurable as similar programs
• Paid professional use