Desktop environment and VNC

[Julius Hamilton <juliushamilton100@gmail.com>]

Hey,

I am having some difficulty connecting to Debian 11 Bullseye via VNC.

I am trying to understand the situation comprehensively.

There are many VNC servers that can be installed from apt, but you also need a desktop environment, which can be installed from tasksel.

I see in tasksel that I already have Debian Desktop Environment and GNOME installed.

I am pretty sure my VNC server is running and fine as it is except a DE is not running so that’s why I can’t connect.

Is it enough to launch the DE, open a new screen with Screen, then launch the VNC?

Does the VNC depend on the DE having been launched first?

Or do I have to launch the DE from the VNC’s xstartup file?

One thing I am also struggling with is finding the launch commands for the DEs I install with tasksel; they don’t seem to correspond to their names. I.e., I know I installed gnome, but don’t know the command to launch it. Is there an easy way to scan your system for DE launch commands?

I think “systemctl start gdm3” might do it.

So is the most smooth and straightforward way to get VNC going putting that in my .vnc/xstartup file? Is that it or is there anything else to be sure to do?

Thanks very much,

Julius