Using Remmina and x11vnc server to enable your Debian 8.3+ remote desktop in Linux Lite 3.0
This tutorial is specific to connecting to a Debian 8.3+ OS running an x11vnc server, to enable its remote desktop on your Linux Lite 3.0 OS with Remmina. All steps can be done from the Debian and Linux Lite desktop GUI’s. Depending on the setup used, in this case a user with sudo privileges on both computers, the Debian 8.3+ remote desktop in Linux Lite is fully functional, again with Libreoffice on both systems, and sudo user privileges with the terminal, and file managers. This set up will perform very well, and quite fast, if both computers have at least 2gig of ram, and at least 2.33g cpu’s, but it will also function admirably on less endowed systems if configured more thinly.
There is a lot of Ubuntu sludge, and dated material on x11vnc available on the Internet. A good portion of it is redundant to the GUI that comes with x11vnc in Debian Jessie, and/or unnecessary except for the SSH tunneling protocol (another subject I will cover in follow up tutorial), and possibly using dconfig on x11vnc in Ubuntu based distros for automatic startup through login (again another subject I will cover in a follow up tutorials related to PXE booting and ad hoc networking) If this is your first time with Debian, or with x11vnc, just ignore the Internet and the terminal for now, and trust this tutorial to get you started on the right track, and get your Debian 8.3 remote desktop displayed and active on your Linux Lite 3.0 desktop. Many things can be configured after you are connected, many actually doable from the remote desktop of your Debian system that Remmina produces on your Linux Lite 3.0 desktop.
The x11vnc server has been around forever, and now that default Debian Jessie has abandoned the XFCE desktop a lot of the old quirks in XFCE requiring add ons and plugins are moot and Remmina is quite modern and powerful with GTK2+ and new GTK3 features that fit quite nicely with the new Debian and systemd and any XFCE distro, i/e the setup to follow here works equally well with Ubuntu based Linux Lite 3.0, and the Solydx OS implementation of XFCE on Debian. I have a laptop with with Linux Lite 3.0, and another with Solydx and can attest to this.
This tutorial is intended to be clicker friendly, and GUI friendly, to ease new users and Windows converts into the real power of Remmina on their Linux Lite 3.0 systems. Below are two links included here for your future reference, one regarding terminal session work to accomplish x11vnc configuration in Debian Jessie, and the other with all the available commands in x11vnc.
https://debian-administration.org/article/135/Remotely_administering_machines_graphically_with_VNC http://linux.die.net/man/1/x11vncInstalling x11vnc via GUI on your Debian 8.3+ OS
Click on >Activities in the top left hand corner of the Debian 8.3+ default desktop. Click the >Show Applications button at the bottom left of the left side panel. Click the small >radio buttons on the right center of the dashboard to scroll. Locate and click on >Synaptic Package Manager. Type in your password and click >Authenticate. Once Synaptic has loaded click the >Search button, and when the window entitled >Find opens up, type in > x11vnc and click the >Search button.
Several package files may then be listed depending on the repositories and PPA's you have enabled. Find x11vnc 0.9.13-1.2+b2, and x11vnc-data 0.9.13-1.2. Right click on them, and from the menu select >Mark for installation. Click >Apply in the upper tool bar. A query window will appear entitled >Summary asking >Apply the following changes. Click the >Apply button in the lower right hand corner, and x11vnc will install to your Debian 8.3+ OS. After confirming installation quit Synaptic, log out, and restart your computer.
Now click the >downward pointing arrow head in the upper right hand corner of the upper tool bar, and from the drop down menu select the >crossed wrench radio button in the lower left hand corner of the menu. This will open up a window entitled >All Settings. Click the >Network icon in the menu. This will open a window entitled >Network. Click the >History button in the lower right hand corner. This will open a window entitled >History. Click the >configure button to the right (the square one with the little gear on it) of your current Internet connection. A window will open entitled >with the SSID of your current Internet connection. Copy the IPv4 address onto paper for later reference. It will be formed something like this i/e 192.168.0.3. Close all open windows and return to desktop.
Now locate a terminal using the dashboard as prescribed above and open it. Everything in the command line between the @ sign and the first :colon is the netbios name of your computer. Write this down on paper for later reference. Now type in >exit, and hit >enter to close the terminal. Leave the system running and return to your Linux Lite 3.0 computer.
Configuring Remmina to connect to x11vnc on Debian 8.3+ from Linux Lite 3.0.
On your Linux Lite 3.0 computer go to >Menu>Internet> highlight and click on >Remmina. A window will open entitled Remmina Remote Desktop Client. Click on >New from the upper tool bar menu. A window will open entitled Remote Desktop Preferences. From the box beside, to the right of, Protocol open the drop down menu and select >VNC-Virtual Network Computing. In the box to the right of Name >type in the netbios name you wrote down earlier of your Debian 8.3+ computer. In the box to the right of Group >type in simply / as a delimiter. In the box to the right of Server type in the IPv4 address of your Debian 8.3+ computer that you wrote down earlier, and add the port 5900, i/e 192.168.0.3:5900. Leave the box to the right of Repeater blank. In the box to the right of User name type in the >user name with sudo privileges of your Debian 8.3+ computer. In the box to the right of Password type in >that same user’s password. To eliminate possible issues on our first connection open the drop down menu to the right of Color depth and select >High color (16 bit). In the box to the right of Quality open the drop down menu and select >Poor (fastest). Leave the >Advanced tab, and >SSH tab alone for now. Click >Save in the lower left hand corner of the window, and then close the window.
Now click >Edit>Preferences from the upper tool bar in the window entitled Remmina Remote Desktop Preferences. A window will open entitled Remmina Preferences. Check the box >Remember last view mode for each connection. Check the box >Save settings when starting the connection. Uncheck the box >Invisible toolbar in fullscreen mode. Check the box >Always show tabs. Uncheck the box >Hide toolbar in tabbed interface. Make sure the box to the right of Default view mode reads >Automatic. The box to the right of Tab interface should read >Tab by groups. The box to the right of Scale quality should read >Hyper. Leave the other settings boxes alone.
Click on the >Applet tab and check >Disable tray icon.
Click on the >Terminal tab and check the box >Use system default font.
Click on the >RDP tab and set the Keyboard layout to <Auto detect> from the drop down menu. Set the Quality option to >Poor (fastest) from the drop down menu. If the desktop wallpaper on your Debian 8.3+ computer is not too heavy check the box >Wallpaper. It is also okay to check the box >Composition if your Debian 8.3+ is using the default desktop. Click >Close in the lower right corner of the Remmina Preferences window. Leave the Remmina Remote Desktop Client window open and return to your Debian 8.3+ computer.
Initial configuration of x11vnc in Debian 8.3+ via the GUI
The default installation of x11vnc in Debian 8.3+ is set to allow only one connection per server instance. For now you should leave that as it is, until in a tutorial to follow this one, you can get through the SSH configurations for Remmina and x11vnc, and/or create an ad hoc wifi network setup which is preferable. It is important to remember that this initial setup will send unencrypted data through your router and your broadband modem, so it is advisable not to use any other Internet accessing applications while running your remote desktop this first time.
Navigate the dashboard, as described previously, and locate the x11vnc server >icon and click on it (looks like a computer monitor in the default icon set). Make sure you have selected the x11vnc server, and not the x11vnc viewer, as Debian 8.3+ installs both. A small information window will appear entitled Select an x11vnc port. In the lower left portion of the window the Port should read >5900, and to the right of File Transfer, the radio button >none should be selected. Click the >OK button and the window will close.
After a brief pause a new small window will open entitled x11vnc Properties. Leave the >Show Instructions box checked, and check the >Accept Connections box. Leave the other boxes unchecked, and click on the >Apply button.
Now in the same x11vnc Properties window click the >Advanced button. A new small window will appear entitled tkx11vnc – (netbios name of your computer):0. From this window you can configure most of the important settings of your x11vnc server instance. Since many of the settings can be changed on a running x11vnc server, clicking on the original x11vnc icon during a desktop session will bring up this window to allow configuration changes, and many can be made from the running remote desktop. This convenience allows for easily configuring the performance of the remote desktop, and because Debian and Remmina are so compatible as far as GTK2+ this works very well.
In the tkx11vnc – (netbios name of your computer):0 window, now click the >Tuning tab, and from the drop down menu scroll down and select >XDAMAGE. A menu will appear to the right with three choices. You must click on them to check or uncheck. All the choices should be unchecked. This will introduce the noxdamage feature into our running x11vnc server and turn off the ncache feature. You do not need or want these somewhat glitchy features because your x11vnc server is not running on an XFCE desktop Debian system, and does not require any XFCE plugins, and you have ample available ram on both computers. It does not matter that your Linux Lite 3.0 computer uses an XFCE desktop, because Remmina is in control of the remote desktop.
Next in the tkx11vnc – (netbios name of your computer):0 window click the >Screen tab. Scroll down the menu and click >8-bit-color. Make sure all the boxes are unchecked in the menu that appears to the right. Remmina in Linux Lite 3.0 will control the initial color mapping then.
Next in the tkx11vnc – (netbios name of your computer):0 window click on the >Actions tab. Scroll down and click on >Settings and from the menu to the right click >save-settings. Click on the >Actions tab again and take notice of the >stop command and click on the >? to the right of it. This will open an explanation of how to stop x11vnc, and explain a few options concerning the GUI (small window) you are currently using. Click >Dismiss to close the help information. Click on the >Actions tab again and scroll down to >Quit and click the >? to the right. Read the help information and then click >Dismiss. Finally click on the >Actions tab again and scroll down and click >Quit. This will dismiss the GUI but leave x11vnc still running. Now you are ready to connect from Remmina on your Linux Lite 3.0 desktop and enable a remote desktop display of your Debian 8.3+ desktop via the x11vnc server running in your Debian OS. Leave you Debian 8.3+ computer running and return to you Linux Lite 3.0 computer.
Connecting
On your Linux Lite 3.0 desktop with the open Remmina Remote Desktop Client window, right click on the connection you created and from the menu click >Connect. On a broadband modem the connection and remote desktop display from Debian 8.3+ will be almost instantaneous, much faster than the Windows 10 RDP remote desktop display. Enjoy.
A Few Quirks
You will notice that Debian desktop works a little differently than the Windows 10 rdp. When you move the mouse on your remote screen in Linux Lite 3.0 the mouse movement occurs on the Debian 8.3+ home desktop. When you open an application on the Debian remote desktop, it opens on the Debian home computer desktop display. All of these things occur in the background on a Windows 10 home computer, via the other user dialogues, so there is no mouse fighting and so forth, the MS flaw being of course that a dilettante Windows 10 user could be completely unaware that their Windows 10 desktop is being accessed remotely.
You cannot control the display size from Remmina with presets for an x11vnc server enabled remote desktop as in the Windows 10 rdp setup. I did not cover the clip and scale options for the x11vnc server in this tutorial because the upper tool bar in your Remmina remote desktop display can change the screen size manually. A good praxis for the new user is to read the help information enabled from >? for all the x11vnc server options in the menus of the tkx11vnc – (netbios name of your computer):0 window. Even GUI’s can have a learning curve. Good luck with your new Debian 8.3+ remote desktop configuration.
TC
