Dummy X11 DISPLAY

From Openprojects

The main idea of this project is to create a dummy X client (server?) that you can easily run and attach to/detach from. Think of it like this:

• You are running an X program through ssh. You don't want to run a whole X session with it's own window manager, just one program. At some point, you want to log off but for the program to keep running, so that you can later reattach to that window from a different computer and see how it's going.
• You are running a complete X session and it completely breaks. But some programs keep running. If you run all your programs connected to a virtual X11, then the fact that the real one breaks won't cause all your programs to stop. Furthermore, you will be able to log in and reattach to the old session to keep using your X program.

If this is already possible, then maybe it's not properly documented. Just paste a link here to that implementation so that somebody can give it a try an, if it works, rename this project to "Document XXX system properly".

Currently, Xvfb allows part of this process to be done. However, Xvfb only creates a virtual server that clients (programs) can connect to, but there's no way to interact with the application that is run attached to the display that Xvfb creates. The best you can do is get a snapshot of the current status of the screen, using xwud.