Working from home
Depending on what operating system you use, you will need to have one or two pieces of software on that machine to properly connect to and work with the UNIX systems.
Mac Users
Mac users will need X11R6. It is generally installed with OS 10.5; 10.4 users will need to install it. Information on each is at the X11R6 page.
Windows Users
To work from home, Windows users will need to install X-Win 32 and PuTTY. When you install X-Win 32, you will also need the license key OIT has provided - install it as a "floating node" configuration. More info on the X-Win 32 page.
When you install PuTTY and run it, the first time through you will need to create a session to connect to one of the Hudson or Teer machines; after that, you can just use that session. More on the PuTTY page.
All Cases
In all cases, you do not need to install anything else. emacs, LaTeX, kdvi, and everything else you need will be on the UNIX systems - you will not have them on your own machines.