Re: Desktop environment and VNC
On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 08:57:36AM +0200, Julius Hamilton wrote:
> 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?
There are two kinds of VNC servers.
The first kind runs a VNC session which is totally independent of what's
running on the physical display (if anything).
The second kind runs inside an existing X11 session, and replicates that
X11 session as a VNC session. I only know of *one* VNC server which does
this, and its name is "x11vnc".
> Does the VNC depend on the DE having been launched first?
Only the second kind (x11vnc) does.
> Or do I have to launch the DE from the VNC’s xstartup file?
For everything else, yeah. That's how it would normally be done.
With most VNC servers, you get a command called "vncserver" which is a
symlink to whatever the real command is. And to start a VNC session as
yourself, you would login, and then run something like:
vncserver :1
This would attempt to start a VNC session on the :1 display. Obviously,
if something is already using :1 this will fail. You'd need to use :2
or whatever, in that case.
Each VNC session is accessible by a separate TCP port, which is some
constant plus the display number. The VNC client software should give
you some way to select which port/session you want to connect to,
usually with :1 or :2 or whatever display number as the indicator.
For more details, see the documentation for whichever VNC server package
you choose to try.
Oh, one last thing: you may not want to run a full-blown desktop
environment as your VNC session. I mean, you *can*, but it's probably
overkill, and some of the fancy features may not work right. You
may want to install a traditional window manager and use that for your
VNC session(s) instead. But it's totally up to you, as we don't know
what your specific needs are.
(I've got some end users at work who use VNC sessions for working from
home on a specific task. I installed fvwm and configured a basic menu
and a VNC session startup script for them to use. They all adapted to
it quite well.)
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