VNC works usually pretty well to control PCs remotely. However, sometimes you only want to run just one program from the remote PC (or 64-core server), like matlab.  Better option than VNC is definitely X forwarding.   ssh -l username -X -v servername   Once you login, simply just run the command for your program, and it will be open like a regular program :)   More details on:  http://www.vanemery.com/Linux/XoverSSH/X-over-SSH2.html   There is also a possibility to do the same in windows using putty and Xwin32:  http://www.math.umn.edu/systems_guide/putty_xwin32.html   edit: In order to enable the X forwarding on your own machine, do the following (ubuntu 11.10)   1) Install openssh-server  “sudo apt-get install openssh-server”   2) Edit the file /etc/ssh/ssh_config. Find/uncomment/modify these lines:  ForwardAgent yes  ForwardX11 yes  ForwardX11Trusted yes   3) Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Find/uncomment/modify these lines:  X11Forwarding yes   4) Restart your SSH server.  Earlier, yo...