I have a remote server machine installed with Ubuntu 7.1.
It has X windows and gnome desktop(I am not familiar with those).
Currently the server is in text mode, and I can not access the machine right now. Additionally, I installed vncviewer in that machine.
Question:
How I start and configure X server, and everything, in order to use a vncviewer client in Windows XP to connect to that server machine?

I tried but the whole architecture is beyond complex. HELP.

Shawn

Let me get this right: You have a ubuntu 7.10 server, with X and gnome installed, and it's running in text mode? What do you mean? Can you use ssh to access the machine?

The easiest way to install x and gnome and have the machine auto configure everything is:

then reboot machine.

Ubuntu 7.1, x, and gnome are all installed already. I just disabled gdm initialization after booting.
Now, I am running in text mode without desktop.
How can I manually start X? Start gnome? Access this desktop via vncviewer remotely?

Thanks,
Shawn

Ok, unless Ubuntu is weird the viewer is for viewing and the server is for serving. So you need to be running VNCserver(or whatever Ubuntu calls it) on the remote machine, not viewer.

Just to be clear you DO NOT want to be logged in as root remotely, nor do you want the machine to be able to run root remotely. There is just much of a security risk. Log in as a user and su - (or sudo) into root.

To start x: startx

Start X by entering 'startx' on the commandline.

Assuming that you have installed vnc-server, you can start it with '/sbin/service vncserver start' or add it as a system service launched at boot by entering '/sbin/chkconfig vncserver on'. Add your default setting in /etc/sysconfig/vncservers like:
VNCSERVERS="1:username 2ther_user"
VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 1024x768 -depth 16"
VNCSERVERARGS[2]="-geometry 800x600 -depth 16"

(of course read the documentation as well)

If you don't want to run it always, then simply run it from your user account as 'vncserver :1'

When using it for the first time, you have to define a password.

In your remote vnc-client pass <IP-address>:1 and the password.

If you only have plain X installed, then you will see an ancient twm desktop. It's the nearest you can get to time traveling.

Linux Archive

Thank you both, lazlow and salter.
Them vnc mechanism is almost clear to me.
But unfortunately, question arises, when I enter vncserver :1, the log file says:

26/11/08 11:14:57 Xvnc version 3.3.7 - built May 24 2007 12:47:11
26/11/08 11:14:57 Copyright (C) 2002-2003 RealVNC Ltd.
26/11/08 11:14:57 Copyright (C) 1994-2000 AT&T Laboratories Cambridge.
26/11/08 11:14:57 All Rights Reserved.
26/11/08 11:14:57 See http://www.realvnc.com for information on VNC
26/11/08 11:14:57 Desktop name 'X' (hpc100:1)
26/11/08 11:14:57 Protocol version supported 3.3
26/11/08 11:14:57 Listening for VNC connections on TCP port 5901

Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed'

Still, I can't remotely connect to the server using vncviewer.

From this line:

and this one:
we can see that the vncserver is running on port 5901

To open vncviewer, try this command:

where <IP address> is the ip address of the machine running the vncviewer