VNC and native X display with vnc.so [Was: Re: more Fedora Cookbook: VNC]

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Les Mikesell wrote:

> Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> >   on the server side i then restarted X (init 3; init 5) and, from the
> > client side:
> >
> >   $ vncviewer 192.168.1.4:0
> >
> > and, lo, i get a VNC window, but it looks like crap -- jagged
> > graphics, underneath which you can vaguely see that, yes, it is
> > trying to represent the remote desktop, and the remote control
> > does work but, clearly, i have some work to do here.
>
> As I recall now, that's why I quit using it. I was getting one chunk
> of the screen twice and the rest was fuzzy.  I think I got some
> advice suggesting it was related to the underlying video card but I
> gave up and haven't noticed any announcements saying it was fixed.

  i can appreciate that -- i've tried invoking vncviewer with various
encoding formats and such and the end result is the same -- massive,
stairstep-type jaggies to the point where you can *vaguely* see that
there's a desktop underneath, but it's utterly illegible.

  however, there is reason to be optimistic.  you referred to this
page for assistance:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=162314

which recommends a whole *buttload* of changes and additions.

  as i mentioned, i got as far as i did with only the following
changes to the server's /etc/X11/xorg.conf (forgive me for repeating
myself):

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Videocard0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
        EndSubSection
        Option "SecurityTypes" "None"     <-- added this
EndSection

Section "Module"       <-- and these three lines
        Load "vnc"
EndSection

  i just wanted the absolutely minimal config that would get this
working.  and after restarting the X server, aside from the crappy
display, it does work -- on the client side, even though i can barely
see what's happening, i can look at the desktop on the server to
follow the action, and the mouse and the keyboard work perfectly.

  in short, i'm willing to believe that it's actually working
properly, i just need to figure out how to fix the display on the
client side from looking like crap.  and, on that note, i'll leave it
alone for now but i'll be happy to test any suggestions that come my
way.  after all, this really is a handy enough feature that it would
be a shame to get this close and not get it working fully.

rday

p.s.  depending on the web page i read, there are two suggestions for
loading the vnc.so module on the server:

first:

  Section "Module"
	Load "vnc"
  EndSection

second:

  Section "Module"
	SubSection "vnc"
		... vnc options ...
	EndSubSection
  EndSection

i know next to nothing about the xorg.conf file -- should i assume
that defining a SubSection in a "Module" section automatically implies
a "Load" of that module?

p.p.s.  i'll probably wiki all of this shortly, even in its incomplete
state.

--

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

Home page:                                         http://crashcourse.ca
Fedora Cookbook:    http://crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Fedora_Cookbook
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