[fny]

That's not the use case. The use case is running apps from a remote Linux host as a local window. A performant VNC for specific windows if you will.

For example, you could run VS Code on that machine as a window on your Mac. A more real world example is people accessing guis (e.g. matlab) on lab clusters.

The closest set up for x11 would be to use x11 forwarding with xpra.

[QuantumNomad_]

> The closest set up for x11 would be to use x11 forwarding with xpra.

Older versions of macOS even had an X server distributed by Apple that you could install on your machine, and if memory serves right you were then easily able to forward X11 from a remote Linux host (or other operating systems running X11 applications) using ssh and have it render to your macOS desktop.

From a quick google search there is apparently still an Apple supported third-party open source project called XQuartz one can use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XQuartz

X11 forwarding with ssh and XQuartz looks to work the same way that I remember using the Apple distributed X server in the past. Install the X server and then use the -X flag of ssh. Same way that you forward X11 between two Linux computers, or Sun workstations or whatever with an X11 desktop, over ssh.

https://docs.cse.lehigh.edu/xforwarding/xforwarding-mac/

[fouc]

I tried that a few times back in the day, but I found it so jarring & ugly against the macOS GUI. The problem was that it was rendering the application alone, for a seamless integration. I don't remember if there was even an option to run a compositor or window manager such that you had a proper window with it's own background and the linux apps show up inside that (like the cocoa-way example).

[nunez]

Used to use XQuartz often years ago for (I think?) forwarding Firefox running in containers for browser-facing integration testing. It was pretty slow IIRC. Switched to VNC, which worked much better.

[LeFantome]

This is Wayland. You could use xprs

[vasvir]

wprs? Does not work for mac yet IIRC...

[adastra22]

Or running applications within fully sandboxed VMs on the local machine, but with native-ish forwarded GUI. Great for dev.

[semi-extrinsic]

We run TurboVNC from macOS to beefy Linux servers on the daily. Just tunnel the connection over SSH. It's been solid for 5+ years.

[varispeed]

Isn't better to run native VS Code and have remote SSH session? It very much works as if it was local (on fast low latency network). Only issue is moving files.

[LeFantome]

This is Wayland. You could use xprs (or Waypipe).

Sorry, I responded to the wrong comment.