I'm a PC guy who's just fell in love with Linux, and needless to say I have no idea what's going on :-D. I have built a SuSE 9.1 box and I am connecting to it from my PC with VNC. I am able to connect with 192.168.0.5 :1 and the title of the VNC window is
"nobody's x11 desktop (linux:1)"

My first question is… Is this the "vncserver" running on the Linux box? Or something else?

My second issue is…
The window is 800x600 and I am trying to figure out how to change it to 1024x768, but I can't figure out where the configuration file is.
Thanks!

… more dumb questions to come.

Dont know bout first... For second though.
In X windows the config file is /etc/X11/XF86Config
You may already have enabled the 1024x768 display mode so while in X windows press
ctrl+alt+ (keypad) + or -
( ctrl alt + or ctrl alt - )
That will cycle you threw all the available sizes you setup so far.
You can either edit XF86Config manually, which you prob have to for mouse wheel anyway, or run xf86config as root. That will walk you through seting up X windows.

On the SuSE workstation itself I have no problem changing the desktop resolution.
I meant that the VNC window size is 800x600 and I wanted to know how to get into the configuration file to make it 1024x768.

Sorry; misunderstood.
This is what you need. Has info on windows sizes and some other usefull info you might want.
http://faq.gotomyvnc.com/fom-serve/cache/57.html
and another..
http://www.realvnc.com/winvncviewer.html

The first is for the server end, the second is more for if on a windows machine on how to resize windows.

"nobody" is a deliberately unpriveledged user that is frequently used by system processes to start something and then release it into the wild knowing that the user it's running as has no real security angles, so is safe. i'd assume this VNC server is therefore being started automatically by a boot process, is that right?

the configuration for this sort of thing is quite varied, esp as most implementations of vnc don't contain the sort of scripts required to load vnc as a service. as such i couldn't say what config files you need. if you check /etc/init.d/vncserver (or something similarly named) you should be able to find either reference to a configuration file or the command being executed directly. e.g "vncserver -geometry 800x600" which you'd obviosuly want to change.

Yes indeed... your Linux box should be running a VNC server. However, this can be done in multiple ways... which leads to your second question. That one I cannot properly answer -- only suggest the location of configuration options for my preferred way of serving VNC connectivity.

After combing the web for instructions, I configured VNC to be automatically started by creating "/etc/xinetd.d/vnc" and writing therein a "service vnc10" section, which among other variables tells "server_args=:42 -inetd -once -query localhost -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16".

But that... is merely one way. Still, it appears usable under Mandrake 9.2. Of course, making it usable did not pass that easily... I likewise had to enable some options under the "[Xdmcp]" section in "/usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc".

I also haven't resolved some issues with automatic starting of services. Connectivity only appears after I have manually run kdm. Should I skip that, I do get the X11 "grey screen" with a responsive cursor, but no KDE login prompt.

(While the starting of "kdm" should not be hard to script, I am somewhat perfectionist and haven't done that -- still hoping to know what I *really* ought to do. )

I have just installed Sun Java desktop system. I would like to use the box as a VPN server. Can someone point me in the right direction to set this pc up as a VPN server? I am very new to Linux. I mean very new, like 2 hours new. Please help.

i

How do I start a new thread? I only seem to have the option to reply.