"VNCing" into Fluxbox MepisLite

Kent, do you have vncserver running on the "remote" box? Vnc, or vncviewer is the client that you run to connect to the remote box, and vncserver is run on the remote box.

Jon

The ability to comfortably use a computer is directly proportional to desire to listen, learn, and experiment, and is inversely proportional to the fear, anger, and stubbornness that you show.

I believe that the package in Synaptic is "vnc4-common" and "vnc4server" and I have the KDE packages for Remote Desktop. I've "VNCed" into the computer when it was using KDE rather than fluxbox, so I know I have everything needed. I just need to know how to get this to work with Fluxbox.

Thanks for the info.

First, the KDE Remote Desktop needs to be started by the "remote" user (the person who wants help). Once s/he has started remote desktop then vnc4server is started on port 5900. In addition, a random password is provided, that the end-user would give to you, the helpful person that you are, so that you can log into the "remote" system.

However, when you are not using KDE, you must start vnc4server yourself. There are many options, and I don't have my Mepis box up and running at the moment, but the simplest starting command (at the command line) is "vncserver --start" if memory serves. This will start the server on port 5901. But from your box from which you want to connect (the "local" box) you would start up vncviewer and enter the IP address of your "remote" box. If you also enter ipaddress:1, then vncviewer automatically does the math and converts ":1" to ":5901".

To learn a little more about it, enter "man vncserver" in the konsole. That way, you can also see if my startup instructions above are wrong (which they probably are)

Jon

The ability to comfortably use a computer is directly proportional to desire to listen, learn, and experiment, and is inversely proportional to the fear, anger, and stubbornness that you show.

Ok, I found out how to get into the fluxbox MepisLite computer with VNC, turns out I just had the port number wrong.

I want to put this computer in a place with no keyboard, mouse, or monitor attached to it. How can I get around the login procedures so all I need to do is VNC right into it?

Kent, glad to hear that you're figuring things out

To set the box up so that you can have VNC started automatically will require a few steps. My apologies in advance for less-than-clear instructions, since I am not at my Mepis box at the moment.

First, modify your system so that "autologin" to a particular user has been enabled. I do not know the menu you can go through in fluxbox, but if you go into the KDE control panel -> System Administration -> Users, you should be able to choose the user you want. I will assume that that user's name is "kent". So now, when you reboot the box, after the startup scripts, user kent will be logged in.

Next, you will need to create, or add to, your /home/kent/.profile file. I don't know your level of Linux expertise, so please note the leading period on ".profile". That makes is a "hidden" file. This file can contain any instructions that are run when user kent first logs onto the system. So, using your favorite editor, add a line to execute vncserver. I won't go into great details at the moment, but please write back if any of this does not make any sense, and I'll flesh it out a bit more. On one of the systems I administered (at a place I no longer work) I configured it so each box did essentially what you want. That way, I could get to the box physically, through a port sharing box, as well as remotely through vnc.

So let me know if you need more info.

[*** edit ***]
Kent, I just did a search through the forum to find some old info that I posted once before on setting up vnc and vncserver. Here are the links. Perhaps it will help too:

VNC (XP Client to Mepis Server) | MEPIS
http://www.mepis.org/node/11281

NX Server on Mepis 6.0 | MEPIS
http://www.mepis.org/node/11407

Jon

The ability to comfortably use a computer is directly proportional to desire to listen, learn, and experiment, and is inversely proportional to the fear, anger, and stubbornness that you show.

Are you *ever* at your MEPIS box?! ROTFLOL...

Actually, I did know some of this stuff already, I had "VNCed" into it while the MepisLite computer was using KDE, and after you told me what port I needed I VNCed in while it ran flux. Now I have autologin working, so I have no reason to have anything plugged into it beyond a power source and a ethernet cable.

Thank you very much, this has been a big learning experience.

So now all I need is to get Samba working on it so I can directly access its files from my regular Mepis laptop (or I guess from my windows partition too, if it works). That and accessing Konqueror(/file manager) as superuser/root in from the menu in fluxbox.

Actually Jerry, I'm not in from of my Mepis box(es) as much as I would like any more

I have a couple virtual boxes here at work that I'm trying to configure "for business purposes", only it's never much of a priority for the business. I'm sure you know that story. And since I've moved to a new home, I have just barely gotten my computer office up, so I have to rely on virtual machines there. I've only had about enough time to download betas and test loading them and installing them.

I miss having two Mepis systems at home and three systems churning away at work where I could play, I mean WORK ON, all day (sniff)

Jon

The ability to comfortably use a computer is directly proportional to desire to listen, learn, and experiment, and is inversely proportional to the fear, anger, and stubbornness that you show.

Great to hear that you're getting things to work correctly Kent. Glad I could help

Jon

The ability to comfortably use a computer is directly proportional to desire to listen, learn, and experiment, and is inversely proportional to the fear, anger, and stubbornness that you show.

I put the box in a remote location with only a power cable and an ethernet cord hooked up. I can VNC into it, and the home directory comes up in Samba, although I can't seem to write to it yet, which I would like to be able to do.

Excellent! You're getting there!

Sounds to me like you need to make some changes in the /etc/samba/smb.conf file. Check for the section for your specific user, and/or the section homes. You may need to change the value of "read only = yes" to "read only = no".

If you make any changes to smb.conf, then restart samba.

Jon

The ability to comfortably use a computer is directly proportional to desire to listen, learn, and experiment, and is inversely proportional to the fear, anger, and stubbornness that you show.

It isn't a "read-only" issue. I fiddled with that, but it still isn't working, is there anything else it could be?