Visualization on Elja

In research moving data from one computer to the next just to view a visualized represantation of it can be a hassle. To make life simpler Elja allows users to run GUI (Graphical User Interface) software on the cluster. For very light loads users can run their software on the Login node (think file or web browsers) and for heavier loads users can run the GUI software on our Compute/GPU nodes.

This is all possible with the help of the X Window System most often called X11. X11 is a windowing system for bitmap displays which are common on Unix-like systems. X is an architecture-independent system for remote graphical user interfaces and input device capabilities. Each person using a networked terminal has the ability to interact with the display with any type of user input device.

X11 is by default installed in all* Linux distributions but for Windows and macOS users there are X11 clients available. Windows users need to setup Xming. MacOS users will need to setup XQuartz.

In the following chapters we will go over the different methods on how to setup your system for X forwarding and how you can run your GUI programs on Elja and view them on your personal computer.