VNC performance

[Andy]

thebigfatgeek wrote:
> Hello Andy
> 
> Thanks for the reply. It got me going in some direction. I installed
> Cygwin on my XP machine with X11org, and created a SSH link to the
> Linux box. I could run Mozilla etc on the box, but it is SLOW!

Sharing the existing (physical) display via VNC is always slow in my 
experience - Windows or Linux.

> I then tried to get Xvnc to run, but it kept on complaining that
> another server is already running. 

Were you trying to start it from withing X? That doesn't work - Xvnc 
starts a complete new X session of it's own, and it doesn't work if you 
try to start it from within an existing X session.

> Could not see anything under ps so
> I tried to kill Xfree86. 

I expect it was XFree86 it was complaining about - but you don't need to 
kill it. You need to run Xvnc _beside_ the existing X session, not 
_on_top_of_ it.

There are a couple of ways of doing it:

1. If you are physically in front of the machine, switch to a text 
console (e.g.Ctrl-Alt-F1), log in, and start the server.

2. If you are accessing it remotely, log in via SSH (you will need the 
sshd daemon installed and running on the machine). If you need help with 
this let me know - it's pretty simple and very useful. Then start Xvnc 
from there.

> I used VNC from my desktop and I could connect to Display XYZ but it
> contained nothing of course!

That's because the startup script it runs isn't starting Gnome.

Look in ~/.vnc/xstartup (it's a script file). It might contain something 
like:

	#!/bin/sh
	xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
	xsetroot -solid grey
	xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
	twm &

Change it to:

	#!/bin/sh
	gnome-session

and it should start Gnome OK.

Hope that helps - any more problems, let me know.

Andy B