I have a home network that contains Windows (XP and 200) and Linux
(primarily Red Hat) systems.  I'd like to move some of the machines
out of my office to operate remotely as unattended servers, but am not
sure how I can access their desktops to control them when necessary. 
I'd like to keep Windows XP as my sole office desktop.

Can I gain access to a Linux desktop (or desktops) from Windows XP ?
Is there a way to use open source or GPL products to keep the
licensing down ?

Hi  misterfine-ga ,

     Here are some resources that should prove helpful when it comes
to remotely administering  linux machines from a Windows computer.

http://www.webmin.com/
Webmin, as the name suggests is a Web Based tool for configuring and
tweaking your Linux box remotely
( Following the acquisition of Webmin by Caldera, all past and future
versions of Webmin are available under the BSD license. This means
that on Linux and other platforms, Webmin may be freely distributed
and modified for commercial and non-commercial use.)

http://www.freeos.com/articles/2664/2/13/
article on webmin

http://www.tightvnc.com/
 TightVNC is a free remote control package derived from the popular
VNC software.
(free, GPL-licensed, with full source code available)

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
PuTTY is a "FREE" implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32
platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator, Executing programs
with a graphical component, however, requires additional software on
the Windows side. A "free" package that provided the needed
capabilities, and much more, is cygwin
http://www.cygwin.com/

http://www.freeos.com/articles/3292/
article on Remote desktop using VNC

Thanks!
chellphill-ga

Try VNC (Virtual Network Computing).  It's open source and is included
on many of the newer Linux distributions.  Alternatively see the
product homepage at http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/.

It's basically an X server which will allow you to view the screen of
your Linux box as if you were sitting in front of it but doesn't have
some of the features that you might find in products like PC anywhere,
such as file transfer.