After speaking to a co-worker I found out that Ubuntu has a remote desktop capability built in to Gnome. That was great to know, so this weekend I spent some time to set that up finally. Enabling Remote Desktop connections is as easy as going to a Preferences Control Panel, a few check boxes are you it took to set it up. See this guide for more info: Remote Access to the Ubuntu Linux Desktop.
On the Windows side, my laptop already had TightVNC client (http://www.tightvnc.com). Using the above guide it was easy to connect to the Remote Desktop on the server using the default port of 5900 and desktop of :0.
This did log me in to the Gnome desktop, and thought I could move the mouse and control the desktop through TightVNC, it would not refresh the screen in the client window. After trying out a few solutions from the Ubuntu forums that didn't work, I remembered something the same co-worker mentioned. Basically there are some issues with VNC if you have any of the desktop effects enabled.
To disable them go to:
System > Preferences > Appearence >Visual Effects
Set to "None"
Immediately this disables the "effects". The only noticeable difference is that there were some transparency effects in some of the windows, and these were turned off. This probably helps with performance in any case.This did the trick and my VNC client came back to life and started to function. Although it is a little choppy if you try to drag a window around the desktop it worked pretty well with the "High-speed Network" connection profile in TightVNC.
Update
Adobe Flash Plugin installed today randomly. All I did was go to http://www.pandora.com/ and install the plugin, worked fine, and the box has been serving its first function as a dedicated internet radio player in my living room.
No comments:
Post a Comment