vncserver in future dists

Chris Tyler chris at tylers.info
Wed Nov 1 19:45:55 UTC 2006


Adam Tkac <atkac at redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm going to port x11vnc
> (http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/) project as default vncserver in
> future dists. Current vncserver has self xorg-server and this is
> argument for x11vnc. When main xorg-x11-server package is patched,
> patches must be ported to vnc now. vncserver might be only "layer" on
> xorg-x11-server and have dependency for it. Maintaining of vnc could be really easy.. What do you think
> about it?? Is this bad idea??

FC6 includes four VNC servers:
- the VNC module for the Xorg server (in package vnc-server)
- Xvnc (vnc-server)
- krfb (kdenetwork)
- vino-server (vino)

krfb and vino-server are basically KDE/Gnome implementations of the same
thing; Xvnc is headless; and the VNC module is a (potentially)
higher-performance version of krfb/vinoserver that is running whenever
the X server is running (i.e., you can login to a session with it).

x11vnc is similar to krfb/vino-server in that it's an X client and does
not contain the X server. Others have pointed out that it can be used
with an X server driving a dummy framebuffer to act like Xvnc, but that
seems kludgey.

One important feature of Xvnc that x11vnc seems to be missing is the
"-inetd" mode, where the RFB protocol is handled on stdin/stdout and the
X display number is automatically determined (first unused port in the
range 6000-6099). This feature is important not only for on-demand vnc
server instances but also for exotic applications such as X clients
embedded into web pages (e.g., embedding one specific X app into a
rectangle on a web page, used for product demos and so forth). One
x11vnc FAQ entry mentions using x11vnc with xinetd, but it's talking
about connecting to a running X server on demand, not starting a new X
instance; you can bridge the gap with some scripting, but again it seems
inelegant.

--
Chris Tyler




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