Re: vncserver

Kurt wrote:
> Opening a VNC viewer to view the server's desktop displayed a blank window with no panels or
> icons, just the old style X shaped pointer.

Hi Kurt.  Prompted by your question, I decided to give this a try.  I 
find that most things work pretty well provided I do one very important 
thing: unset $SESSION_MANAGER in the environment before launching vncserver.

Here's the back story.  $SESSION_MANAGER is set in the environment by 
"gnome-session", and inherited by everything below this, including the 
shell window in which you're launching the VNC server.  So when the VNC 
server launches your initial X session, that also inherits $SESSION_MANAGER.

Now, "gnome-session" is pretty selfish, and doesn't want to share the 
display with any other session managers.  So when your initial X session 
tries to launch a *second* gnome-session process, it notices that 
$SESSION_MANAGER is already set, and therefore refuses to run.  Thus, "a 
blank window with no panels or icons, just the old style X shaped pointer."

You should be able to make this hack automatic by editing 
"~/.vnc/xstartup" and adding "unset SESSION_MANAGER" to the very top.

I suppose one could claim that there's a bug here somewhere.  Perhaps 
the X startup scripts (e.g., "/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc") should unset 
$SESSION_MANAGER for you.  Or perhaps $SESSION_MANAGER is a bad idea, 
and you really want distinct variables for distinct displays: 
$SESSION_MANAGER_0, $SESSION_MANAGER_1, etc.  I'm not sure who's at 
fault here.

One GNOME2 is up and running inside VNC, most things work quite well.  A 
notable exception is gnome-terminal, which reacts quite badly to the 
lack of a RENDER extension on the virtual X server.  That's a bug, clear 
and simple.  Anybody know if it's been filed yet?

BTW, it's pretty cool to observe some things which do work, and work 
well.  For example, one Nautilus on the VNC server and a second Nautilus 
viewing the same folder on the real server remain perfectly in sync 
thanks to FAM.  Also, twiddling control panel settings on one server 
instantly updates the other, thanks to gconf.  (Of course, this assumes 
that the real and virtual displays are hosted on the same box, which is 
probably not a typical usage scenario.  Anyway, it's still cool.)

I hope this helps you out, Kurt!  Good luck.


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