- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygwin/X
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_tunnel
$ startxwin
I usually prefer the rootless way.
My applications nowadays “usually” run on a Linux (Debian, …) system or AIX.
Update 2018-04-18: After some cygwin updating startxwin prefers to shut down immediately.
I had no idea, that startxwin uses this start-up file: /etc/X11/xinit/startxwinrc . The last utility called there usually makes X wait for ever, but it faulted:
/usr/bin/xwin-xdg-menu
This is an alternative way to start X / my fallback solution:
$ xinit — -multiwindow -clipboard
Within a shell window started there I ran:
$ strace /usr/bin/xwin-xdg-menu
It said, there was a problem with cygfreetype-6.dll . This weg page tells you, which cygwin packages include the file in question:
https://cygwin.com/cgi-bin2/package-grep.cgi
I reinstalled that package, and everything was fine.
Any lesson learned? The cygwin updating silently (?!?) left at least one corrupt file. Quite hard to find out, which one was concerned.