Re: What is VNC?
Manegold@uni-trier.de wrote:
>
> On 12-Dec-2000 Erik Steffl wrote:
> > Manegold wrote:
> >>
> >> Alson van der Meulen wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > When it comes to controlling a Linux X display, I'm a little more
> >> > > hazy.
> >> > >
> >> > > Near as I can figure, if you want to control a Linux box using
> >> > > VNC, you
> >> > > don't run your normal X server. Instead you run vncserver from a
> >> > > non-X
> >> > > environment. This starts the VNC server, but you don't see any GUI
> >> > > locally. To see a local GUI, you then have to do some magic to get
> >> > > your
> >> > > window manager to run on the VNC server; this means that you're
> >> > > not
> >> > > running your accelerated X server, so you may see some speed
> >> > > issues,
> >> > > etc. Then from the second Linux (or Mac, or Windows) box, you run
> >> > > the
> >> > > VNC client and connect like in Example 2 above.
> >> > >
> >> > > In other words, as far as I can tell, you can't run your
> >> > > super-duper
> >> > > accelerated, hot-off-the-press, XFree86 server locally if you want
> >> > > to
> >> > > see the same desktop locally and via remote control. This is not
> >> > > the
> >> > > (semi-equivalent) case on Windows, but it seems to be the case on
> >> > > Linux.
> >> > >
> >> > > I may very well misunderstand how the thing works, but this is the
> >> > > conclusion I've come to after trying it three or four times over
> >> > > the
> >> > > past couple of years.
> >> > how about xvncviewer connecting to localhost, from using the
> >> > super-duper
> >> > accelerated, hot-off-the-press, XFree86 server
> >>
> >> As I have come to understand, that will give you two desktops. One
> >> under
> >> the super-duper ... XFree86 Server and one via VNC (running in a
> >> Window,
> >> liken an application, on that said super-duper X-Server).
> >>
> >> Also you always get a whole Desktop (even if it's in a window), while
> >> with X you get only the window for the respective application. That
> >> seems to be preferrable, if you want to run 5 apps on 5 different
> >> computers, since with VNC you would then have 5 Desktops on one screen
> >> (one for each computer).
> >>
> >> >From what I learned off the web page of VNC (thanks for the link to
> >> >to
> >> poster!), I can't use VNC as a replacement for X (unless you get the
> >> non-X vncviewer to work on the console), which would have been
> >> interesting because of the footprint of X. Also it seems that VNC is
> >> not
> >
> > well, vnc server IS X server (on unix machines).
> >
> > so you are not avoiding X, you are replacing one X server (+ the rest
> > of X) by another one (you still need the rest of X like fonts,
> > programs,
> > utilities etc., whether you use the ones that come with xfree86 or some
> > different one)
> >
> >> as efficient via Network as X, but I don't really understand why.
> >> Maybe
> >> someone can elaborate on that.
> >
> > it depends, some operation are more efficient some are less.
> > basically
> > vnc transfers bitmaps, X transfers 'commands' (very simplified).
> >
> > for example the moving of a window - if you have X window, the moving
> > is done locally (by local X server), with vnc the moving is done in vnc
> > server and is only displayed locally, which is of course slower (much
> > more network traffic).
>
> I guess that's why vnc hasn't replaced the X window system yet.
in certain sense vnc IS X, just modified for certain purpose. the vnc
server on unix machines is basically implementation of X server.
> >> Making the X Desktop accessible / transferrable via VNC, as is
> >> possible
> >> with Windows, is not possible with UNIX/Linux.
> >
> > ???
> >
> > windows have no X desktop.
>
> true.
>
> >
> > if you mean that you can use vnc to view windows desktop but not to
> > view your 'normal' linux X desktop, that's sort of true, it's not
> > possible with 'straight' vnc, but I've just seen ITP on debian-devel
> > for
> > a program that does that (not sure how well it works).
>
> Yes that's what I meant. I would like to run my normal local display
> system (X), but also have the option to kind of teleport my display to
> some other computer that I happen to be at. When I'm done I want to be
> able to return to my computer and find everything the way I left it when
> I left the other computer.
> vnc does that. As a display I still seem to
> need X locally though, since the console vncviewer does not work with my
> graphics card. I don't know if I would save much overhead as long as I'm
> working with vnc locally compared with normal X. But starting X plus
> windowmanager, vncserver (running another windowmanager and the apps on
you can run X server and xvncviewer as only app in it, fullscreen, in
that case you don't need window manager running twice. it's kinda
pervert though:-)
> that display), and also xvncviewer, is certainly quite a footprint. It
> would do what I described above.
if that's the case you want the program I forgot the name of that was
just ITP'd, I think it's rfb or rvb or something like that.
I guess you might try to find it and build it from sources.
not sure if it's the same thing, I just found it on freshmeat.net:
http://www.hexonet.de/software/x0rfbserver/
it looks like it does what you want, you can run 'normal' X and have
the display accessible just as if it were vnc server...
erik
Reply to: