OK, I have X. Now what?

The power of having an xterm (as opposed to logging in via ssh) is that your Windows desktop is, for all intents and purposes, just as good as sitting in front of a Linux machine. Now, you can do things like spawn the graphical version of emacs. Here's a few commands I entered into my xterm session:

    tahiti% ls -F
    file1   file2   notes/  public/  scheme/  sml/
    tahiti% cd sml
    tahiti% emacs &
    [1] 22933
    tahiti%

What did I do?

1. ls -F: list files and directories. The -F option tells ls to distinguish between files and other objects (folders, for example, have a trailing slash).
2. cd sml: change directory to sml.
3. emacs &: start up the emacs editor. The & starts emacs in the "background". Notice that the prompt returns to you: this is because the shell has "forked" the process so that your terminal can continue interacting.