Recommendations for VNC servers

paulj · Guru Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 526 Location: Wales, UK

Good morning!
I have an Udoo Bolt computer in my ham shack running gentoo, and a desktop in the office in the house. I would like to access the running X session on the shack computer from the desktop (as opposed to cli ssh access used until now). The solutions seems to be to run a VNC server in the shack, and then connect through a vncviewer from the office (or laptop etc). I would like to have the following:

The ability to see and interact with the desktop currently on the monitor in the shack. In other words, I don't want to start another X session (although on occasion, the ability to do this might be useful as well!).
To have the server up and running when the computer boots up, before anyone logs in. I want to be able to log in remotely, but then go to the shack and continue to use the session I have started.

Based on these requirements, it looked like x11vnc would be the best candidate, but it doesn't seem to work "out of the box", and there isn't much gentoo specific information about getting it configured to work.Tigervnc seems to start a new X session - I can't see anywhere in the documentation which shows connecting to the existing session.
Other (potentially relevant) information: the shack computer uses kde/plasma as a desktop environment, and slim as login manager.

I would be interested to hear your views about which vnc server I should consider!

Thanks in advance,
Paul

flysideways · Guru Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 501

I have TigerVNC on a couple of Gentoo Raspberry Pi's for a vnc server. I use it occasionally, seems to work. I usually access the server usingVNC Viewer from whatever is in front of me. It may be another Pi on RPi OS, a Mac, or Windows.

I don't run it as a daemon. I start it with a geometry statement that corresponds to the monitor in front of me, then kill the server when I am finished.

I'm posting this from one of those Pi's using a TigerVNC server and a Windows PC using VNC Viewer as the client. Just wanted to make sure it was still working. The Pi is presently maxed out compiling Firefox, but it is only slow, not unusable. Oh, what a lovely advance from the old 200 watt single core room heaters.

user · Apprentice Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Posts: 213

Hi paulj,

you can use tigervnc as remote and persistent X server.

Hu · Administrator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 22924

Another option would be to use xpra. The X clients display to a headless xpra server, then both local and remote viewing are forwarding the xpra contents. The advantage of this is that each underlying window remains a distinct X window on the viewer system, rather than having all the shack windows confined to a VNC viewer window. Also, you can easily switch between local and remote viewing.

One reason I dislike VNC for the use case you seem to have is that x11vnc shows what is on the host's monitor, so you need the host to be unlocked to view it remotely.

figueroa · Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2021 3:36 am Post subject:

You may want to consider net-misc/x2goserver, depending on the DE/WM you run on your hamshack PC.
See: https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:de-compat
I use it with OpenBox, LXDE, and older XFCE. Newer XFCE is becoming incompatible using the XFWM's composting.
_________________
Andy Figueroa
hp pavilion hpe h8-1260t/2AB5; spinning rust x3
i7-2600 @ 3.40GHz; 16 gb; Radeon HD 7570
amd64/23.0/split-usr/desktop (stable), OpenRC, -systemd -pulseaudio -uefi

paulj · Guru Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 526 Location: Wales, UK

Thanks everyone - some good options to try out! I’ll post back how I get on.

cwc · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2025 3:19 pm Post subject:

yo paulj,

what option did you go with?
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Without diversity there can be no evolution:)

paulj · Guru Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 526 Location: Wales, UK