X11 on the plug

[karurosu]

Have anybody attempted to install X11 in the plug?
I am interested cause it would be nice to VNC into it and use it to run stuff.

[Raúl Porcel]

I did. Works fine.

[frankie]

I did. Works fine.

Can you kindly describe how you did it and used it? It will help us the newbies. Thanks!

[Raúl Porcel]

I did. Works fine.

Can you kindly describe how you did it and used it? It will help us the newbies. Thanks!

Well, depends what distro are you using, but for running VNC is pretty simple. Just have the package needed('apt-get install vnc4server' on ubuntu, afaik), run 'vncserver'. And then connect to it from your computer using 'vncviewer 192.168.0.111:1'(replace 192.168.0.111 with the ip of the plug). You can get vncviewer doing 'apt-get install xvnc4viewer'.

I don't know the stuff on ubuntu, but the vncserver and vncviewer commands are standard.

[jmknapp]

I have gnome running on the plug--pretty decent performance on my wireless LAN at least.

The basic steps:

- replace the root file system with an large SD card per the FAQ
- apt-get install xorg gdm
- apt-get install gnome-core
- apt-get install vnc4server

There's a problem with running xterm, etc though. See: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7050991

Basically libxt needs to be rebuilt to include latest (unoffical) fixes. Following the instructions at the above URL:

-----------------------
modify /etc/apt/sources.list to include the source repositories: add the line
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com jaunty main restricted universe multiverse

update apt so it knows about the source stuff:
apt-get update

get basic build tools and headers:
apt-get install build-essential

get headers for other X library stuff that libXt references:
apt-get install xorg-dev

get source for libXt; this will be downloaded to the current directory:
apt-get source libxt

untar the libXt source:
tar xvfz libxt_1.0.5.orig.tar.gz

cd into the libxt_1.0.5 directory, configure, and build
cd libxt_1.0.5
./configure
make

copy the newly build library to the system location - but first save the old one in case something goes wrong
mv /usr/lib/libXt.so.6.0.0 /usr/lib/libXt.so.6.0.0.bak
cp src/.libs/libXt.so.6.0.0 /usr/lib/libXt.so.6.0.0
--------------------------

After doing all that I was able to open a gnome session remotely with vnc.

Joe

[frankie]

Thank you, Joe and Raul, you offered very good assistance. 

[solstice]

I only have problem with gnome under tightvnc session. Basically the gnome-terminal complains that the RENDER is not supported. Does any body have a work around for this?

[jmknapp]

I only have problem with gnome under tightvnc session. Basically the gnome-terminal complains that the RENDER is not supported. Does any body have a work around for this?

I guess I get that too, although the terminal comes up OK & seems to work fine. The error message actually complains about "RANDR":

extension "RANDR" missing on display

No idea what that is, but found this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=982114:

randr support in Xvnc has been a much requested feature by users, and a much ignored feature by developers.
There are several unofficial patches for various versions of realvnc and tightvnc floating around, but they have never been incorporated into the main codebases. I guess the main developers need more nagging or something.

[frankie]

I could not install xorg gdm. Apt-get analyzed packages but said "xxx package could not be installed". Is it because of my sources.list settings? I could not install apt-get either, prompted "package could not be found" etc.

Thanks!

[jmknapp]

You might try:

apt-get update

...first.

BTW, on getting apt-get to work, the FAQ mentions having to create two directories /var/cache/apt/archives and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial. Fine, but the FAQ adds that they need to be recreated on each reboot & suggests doing so in /etc/rc.local. I find that doesn't work, as /var/cache is a temporary filesystem evidently created and mounted after /etc/rc.local runs. Instead I created them ( mkdir -p /var/cache/apt/archives/partial) in /etc/init.d/mountall.sh. There may be a better way, but that works.

[frankie]

Thank you, jmknapp. I installed apt-spy and I've successfully installed xorg gdm and gnome-core. However, when I tried to install vnc4server, I got this "package vnc4server has no installation candidate". Anybody got a clue? Thanks!

[jmknapp]

Ooops... brain fade... I forgot which package I had added... try this:

apt-get install tightvncserver

BTW, a handy tool for finding what packages are available is 'aptitude':

apt-get install aptitude

Once you get the aptitude command, you can get a list of, say, any package name containing the characters 'vnc':

aptitude search vnc

Joe

[frankie]

Hi Joe, thank you again. I tried tightvncserver and succeeded!

[mike]

Hi,

Followed the docs here in the forum, and I was able to successfully get Gnome up on the plug.  Vncserver appears to work ok... 

I have a couple of issues:

1.) the keyboard layout does not map correctly from my vnc client to the vnc server.  When I type 'asdf', I get 'abfh'  I've tried to find a solution via Google... no luck yet.  Hopefully someone has seen and resolved this before?

2.) I installed firefox, but when I try to run it (here I'm ssh'ing in and remoting the display due to the problem above), I get 'Couldn't load XPCOM.'  I'm hoping that someone will be able to help me with this.

Mike

[mike]

As a follow on to my previous post, I performed an 'apt-get update' and then I was able to launch firefox, over an ssh connection, remoting the display. 

Keyboard still an issue on the vnc... using remote display in the meantime.

Mike