I've recently begun using FC4 (for about the third time - hopefully I can stick with it). I've got the Vino server running in Gnome for remote desktop access, but it seems that I cannot connect without logging onto the machine first. Can anyone think of a way to make Vino accessible before logging in, or maybe there's a way to remotely make the machine login to the Gnome desktop. I suppose this is something Linux experts wouldn't normally do, but as a newbie, having graphical access to the desktop would be a huge advantage for me. Since I'm running it on a dual boot system, it would be nice if I could reboot the machine remotely and still have the desktop environment accessible.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions...
Mike

Vino is just one type of a VNC server, it serves the current X session. There are several other vnc servers that allow a new X to be created upon server startup(tightvnc and realvnc come to mind.)

If youre looking for a way to log into a machine remotely via GDM, then VNC is not the right course of action. Its alot simpler to take an ssh connection, fire up a normal vnc server and then connect to that.

If you realy want to go thru with GDM, then I suggest you do some reading around the topics of LTSP since thats the smartest project using remote GDM, they have the best docs on it.

Thanks for the advice. I eventually learned that I could get TightVNC (or regular VNC for that matter) to show my desktop by configuring the script $HOME/.vnc/xstartup. Here's what mine looks like (for anyone else that's looking to accomplish the same):

#!/bin/sh

# Red Hat Linux VNC session startup script
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
setroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic & xterm -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" & twm &


Now, in order to be able to load the vnc client without having to physically be present to login on the server first, I can ssh into the server and run vncserver <options> :<display>. Then I can connect no problem, and it looks great.

I did notice that GNOME got confused about my keyboard (is this usual?) As a note to others, if you are prompted, make sure you choose the 'GNOME' settings, not the 'X' settings, or your keys will be all mixed up.