SUSE 9.1 - VNC Setup
 

Apologies to all. I'm moderately n00bish and haven't run SUSE for a while so I need some help.

I have a brand new default SUSE 9.1 Personal install. Everything works great (besides my desktop not expanding to my 2nd monitor, but that's another issue) and installation was easy.

However I'd like to get VNC setup so that I can access my desktop from work using either a VNC client or Window's RDC if possible. I think I read somewhere it was, but I'm not sure.

I've read some howtos but I can't seem to find one on how to get the VNC server setup on my machine at home. I've went through the YAST2 menu a few times and it seems I need to install XFree86-Xvnc and tightvnc, as well as enable inetd.

I am unable to find XFree86-Xvnc under the YAST2 menu and I'm basically confused. I don't believe I have the VNC server installed at all. Any of you gurus know a good thorough howto or can get me going in the right direction? Tips for both server and client would help out a lot.

Any and all info is very much appreciated.

- Dix

1. Check if vnc is installed
rpm -qa | grep vnc

2. If you really need to use yast, vnc is under network services and is called "remote administration"

3. Or, simply type vncserver at a command prompt. U will be prompted to set a password.

4. You can start 99 vncservers.

5. Client will connect via a GUI tool, or from command prompt

vncviewer xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:1
assuming the client wants to view the 1st display

Note! In X you are on display 0
in VNC you are starting displays 1 2 3 4 5 depending on how many occurances of VNC you want.

NOTE!!!! VNC is not secure! You will need to tunnel thru ssh if you want it to be secure!

Okay, here's what I get:
davelin:~ # rpm -qa | grep vnc
kdenetwork3-vnc-3.2.1-45

I assume this means it's installed. I believe I installed it earlier through YAST.

So then I do:
davelin:~ # vncserver
-bash: vncserver: command not found

So then I think maybe I'll try to enable it through YAST. However when I try to do this, I get this pop-up menu:
These packages need to be installed:
xinetd
tightvnc
XFree86
XFree86-Xvnc

I click Continue and the menu disappears along with the Remote Administration window. If I go back into the Remote Admin window "Do not allow remote administration" is checked in again.

So it appears to my n00b eyes that VNC either isn't installed correctly or not at all.

No kde-vnc is just a front end.

In Yast softwhere section use search to find vnc. It shud be something like Xvnc.
You need to install that.

amfoster, could you post how to view the X using vncviewer??
i mean i have my X always running.. eg the login screen.. ( initd runlevel 5 )
so how do i use vncviewer to view that display?

to take a look at the vncserver with vncviewer you only have to start vncviewer (of course you should be using X).
then you type in the box, which should be popping up, ip-adress:display usually if there is a X-server running 1.
The vncserver normally tells you on which Display it is running.
then you type in your password for the vncserver and then you should see the desktop which you have configured in the xstartup of your vncserver.

If I do a search for "vnc" in the YAST software section the only thing I get returned is "kdenetwork3-vnc".

I wonder, does the fact that I'm using Personal and not Professional make a difference? It seems that the VNC server just isn't there. Maybe I installed wrong, haha.

http://www.tightvnc.com/

Download it fm the net. This link is good and there are Windows versions too.

Okay, I think this will help me out. But... :D

I've tried installing via the RPM file, but it doesn't seem to work and I'm not sure if it should or not. So I just downloaded the binaries and began to go through the README on isntallation.

I says to do the following:
% xmkmf
% make World
However when I attempt to do xmkmf my shell tells me the command was not found. So now I'm lost again. What is this and how do I get it?

Thanks again to all, and sorry for being a pain.