im really getting sick of network related problems today.

i finally fixed ssh today thanks to you guys. now im looking into a graphical administration.

first i tried the X11 forwarding with ssh, but that just displays the programs on my X session, and not on the remote computer's session.

now i have used tightvnc with windows for a year now and with windows i can control the exact same remote desktop. After reading on linux's version of tightvnc, i learned that you cannot control the local desktop (the default :0.0). Am i right on this (or is there a way, even without vnc, cause that's exactly the kind of control im looking for).

i start the vncserver with an example from the man pages

vncserver -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 :1


that by itself shows that it's not going to run on the :0 desktop, but anyway, i just wanted to try it.It also asked me for a password and spit out this:

root@maya:~# vncserver -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 :1

You will require a password to access your desktops.

Password:
Verify:
Would you like to enter a view-only password (y/n)? n
Couldn't start Xvnc; trying default font path.
Please set correct fontPath in the vncserver script.

New 'X' desktop is maya:1

Creating default startup script /root/.vnc/xstartup
Starting applications specified in /root/.vnc/xstartup
Log file is /root/.vnc/maya:1.log

I am not sure if it actually starts the Xvnc server because of the error)

so on the other computer i run this:

saturn_vk@sat:~$ vncviewer maya:1

great, it loads, almost fine.

it's just that it cannot find the damn fonts (thus the previous error). now gnome looks like a bunch of boxes. how do i tell vnc to use the standard fonts that are located in /usr/X11R1/.../fonts

the vncserver executable is actually a script, so go and edit /usr/bin/vncserver and change the $font_path in there, Default is set up as
$fontPath = "unix/:7100";

but a couple lines down from there is this line:

# $fontPath = "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/";

I would try uncommenting this second line and try again. If you get more errors, comment the first line and try again. And if that doesn't work, come back and I'll see if I can help break anything else

since, vnc starts it's own X server, is there a way i can switch to that with the ctrl+alt+F? rather than using vncviewer on the local machine. since someone mentioned using vncviewer as his desktop, so it will feel like the windows vnc. how can i do that?