Re: vncserver

Ben,

Thanks! It is getting there. The unset $SESSION_Manager hack did not
seem to work, but your info did help me get to a suitable work around. I
will play with the .vnc/xstartup file some more later and see if I can
get it to work.

What I wound up doing was to start the vncserver from a runlevel 3
command line. Having the vncserver already started I was able to log on
the box as another user in a KDE session and open a vncviewer.  This
allows me to avoid having the conflicting second gnome-session, and gets
me going for now. I am sure I can eventually reach a much more elegant
solution.

I hope that in the Linux battle for the hearts and minds of the business
desktop we don't see too much of the old familiar Micro$ofteese. "It
isn't a bug, it's a feature!" 

Thanks again,
Kurt

On Thu, 2002-09-12 at 03:03, Ben Liblit wrote:
> 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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