vnc woes

May 11, 2007 12:30 PM

VNC question not answered in any of the other questions tagged VNC.

My work has recently moved us from solaris boxes to linux. For vpn we use citrix which kicks me to a CDE. I was told to try vnc so that I would have my KDE and I could also pickup my existing session from home.
I did everything and I can connect from home (vncserver on linux, vncviewer on XP SP2). The problem is picking up my active session from home. From home everything I am doing is on pts/2 while everything I left running at work is on pts/1.
Today a co-worker said I have to start vncserver, and then open vncviewer on my linux machine. From that point anything I do in that desktop I will see from home when I connect (I set the desktop # in my alias commandline to start vncserver). Is that really the only way I can pickup my session? If so I have an additional hiccup of different monitor sizes between work and home. Work is 2 20" monitors while home is a 19" and 17". I set the geometry (in the alias) to fit my home setup, so if I try to work in the vncviewer at work (so that I can pickup from home) I have an unusable screen size.
I have looked throughout realvnc.com and have not found relevent info, nor from google. I have no option in using a viewer other than the realvnc viewer I access through work from home.

posted by sailormouth to computers & internet (5 comments total)

As I recall, unlike windows, the linux VNC applications work by creating a new/separate desktop. The windows ones work by overriding/using the main (only) desktop session in windows. As far as I know there is not too much you can do about that.
posted by RustyBrooks at 12:39 PM on May 11, 2007

There is a VNC server called x11vnc that can connect to your existing X desktop.

This is probably what you want.
posted by toxic at 12:59 PM on May 11, 2007

I think this might be what you're looking for. (Yeah it's slightly gentoo-specific but you ought to be able to get an idea.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:38 PM on May 11, 2007

what your coworker describes is how i did things for years. worked great for me.

even if you use x11vnc you are going to have problems with the different monitor real estate. but i dont understand -- the home geometry is smaller than the work geometry, so why is that unusable at work?
posted by joeblough at 1:05 AM on May 12, 2007

I finally got IT to respond and they said the way my co-work said was the only way to pick up an existing session. They said they do not allow :0 sessions for potential security risks.

-joeblough I was setting a smaller geometry in the vncserver start up to accomodate my home setup. So then when I started a vncviewer at work and connected to the vncserver the viewer was set to that smaller geometry. Even with the viewer on fullscreen it was half the total size of my work monitors, thus useless.
To remedy this I'll set geometry for work monitors and then just adjust geometry when I connect from home.
posted by sailormouth at 1:48 PM on May 12, 2007