Getting it working on (x)ubuntu 24.04

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Henry Lockyer

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Apr 25, 2025, 1:07:50 PMApr 25
to TigerVNC User Discussion/Support
Hi, I'm having problems getting TigerVNC server working on a newly setup Ubuntu system (xubuntu minimal installed on an old Mac Mini). I'm new to linux so still working out which way is up, and would much appreciate some help disentangling what is wrong with my TigerVNC configuration, or whether the problem is elsewhere.

With a simple xterm startup, as suggested to try by the [tiger]vncserver command output, I appear to have got _some_ sort of remote access/login working from another Mac machine, using the mac built-in Screen Sharing app. I get a black screen share window with a white terminal/command line box in the top left corner - but I cannot interact with it by mouse or keyboard.

The version of TigerVNC I have is 1.13.1, which seems to have got into ubuntu about a year ago (early 2024) and is the packaged version I got when I fetched it (using Synaptic) recently for Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS.

I installed xubuntu minimal as I don't need all the normal applications on this machine and as it was based on Xfce, which seemed a good choice for VNC too.

So before diving into anything more detailed re my config or experiments I guess my first question is: should TigerVNC work on this ubuntu version OK?  I noticed a slightly ominous entry in the TigerVNC release notices: "- Ubuntu 24.04 packages have been added" but this was for 1.14, whilst ubuntu served me up with 1.13 for 24.04 LTS. 

Thanks

Pierre Ossman

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Apr 25, 2025, 6:47:37 PMApr 25
to Henry Lockyer, TigerVNC User Discussion/Support
On 25/04/2025 19:07, Henry Lockyer wrote:
> So before diving into anything more detailed re my config or experiments I
> guess my first question is: should TigerVNC work on this ubuntu version OK?
> I noticed a slightly ominous entry in the TigerVNC release notices: "-
> Ubuntu 24.04 packages have been added" but this was for 1.14, whilst ubuntu
> served me up with 1.13 for 24.04 LTS.
>

The first detail to note here, is that Ubuntu (really Debian) does their
own packaging of TigerVNC. The entry you refer to refers to *our*
packaging, which is slightly different from what you get from Ubuntu.

For your matter at hand, it sounds like you might have gone the xstartup
approach. This isn't really suitable for modern desktops. What you
should do is the modern service approach, where you configure stuff in
/etc/tigervnc. I'm unsure if Ubuntu's packages have that. You may need
to use the packages from us in that case.

Regards
--
Pierre Ossman Software Development
Cendio AB http://cendio.com
Teknikringen 8 http://twitter.com/ThinLinc
583 30 Linköping http://facebook.com/ThinLinc
Phone: +46-13-214600

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

Henry Lockyer

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Apr 26, 2025, 7:32:37 PMApr 26
to TigerVNC User Discussion/Support
Sorry if this is duplicating - my previous reply seems to have vanished.

Many thanks for your response Pierre.

I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from it at the moment.  

I'm trying to take an uncontroversial middle-of-the-road approach using seemingly stable off-the-shelf packages etc as I don't know enough yet to do anything fancy!

Although I'm unclear what exactly it might mean in terms of detail/differences, I do understand that eg.Ubuntu have taken TigerVNC and packaged it for their users somewhat in 'their way' maybe. But having looked at multiple blogs/articles describing how to set up TigerVNC on Ubuntu, where they just "apt install tigervnc-standalone-server" etc. then it seemed safe to assume that it should work in ubuntu even if the currently packaged version of tigervnc is a couple of releases behind the  latest version, or if the packaging differs in some details from a direct download from yourselves.  Is this a wrong assumption?

You are right I tried an 'xstartup' approach, amongst other things, but for tigervnc version 1.13 why is that a problem? It seems to be consistent with the man page and config file info regarding the way config information is read.

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by "the modern service approach, where you configure stuff in
/etc/tigervnc" (could you clarify a little?).  I noticed that the location of configuration files was changed after version 1.13 and stuff was arranged according to some 'XDC' arrangement (IIRC) but this mainly seemed to be relocating some information not resolving a fundamental ubuntu(/Debian)-compatibility issue in the earlier versions (?)

From my reading of the man pages and explanatory information in the 1.13 config files it seemed that there were various steps taken taken within tigervnc to accommodate various configuration arrangements especially filenames and syntax, such as first of all looking for ~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf or failing that a 'config' file, looking for ~/.vnc/Xtigervnc-session or 'xstartup' and so on. If these were missing then it defaults to /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-default  and /etc/X11/Xtigervnc-session.

If I leave everything at default after installation of tigervnc, define a vnc password and run 'vncserver' I get a load of errors from 'xbcomp' then "/etc/X11/Xtigervnc-session' cleanly exited too early (< 3 seconds)!" so the default does not work.

If I add an xstartup file with the contents according to articles on the web:

#!/bin/sh
xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
startxfce4 &

...then it fails because there is no .Xresources file at that location in my system as recently installed.

If I create an empty .Xresources file then I don't get an error message from xrdb but vncserver still exits
with "Session startup via '/home/heinrich/.vnc/xstartup' cleanly exited too early (< 3 seconds)!"

If I take the suggestion to "Maybe try something simple first, e.g.,
tigervncserver -xstartup /usr/bin/xterm"

Then (with -localhost no) then, as I mentioned before, I can access remotely somewhat but just get a dead window that does not repond to keyboard or mouse.

So I'm wondering where to look for the root of the problem.

It would be good to know what "- Ubuntu 24.04 packages have been added" means (for the 1.14 tigervnc release).

Thanks again..

Pierre Ossman

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Apr 28, 2025, 7:00:49 AMApr 28
to Henry Lockyer, TigerVNC User Discussion/Support
On 27/04/2025 01:32, Henry Lockyer wrote:
>
> You are right I tried an 'xstartup' approach, amongst other things, but for
> tigervnc version 1.13 why is that a problem? It seems to be consistent with
> the man page and config file info regarding the way config information is
> read.
>

Modern environments tend to require a lot of small details to be
correctly set up. You can get everything from graphical errors, to
crashes, without them.

> I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by "the modern service approach,
> where you configure stuff in
> /etc/tigervnc" (could you clarify a little?). I noticed that the location
> of configuration files was changed after version 1.13 and stuff was
> arranged according to some 'XDC' arrangement (IIRC) but this mainly seemed
> to be relocating some information not resolving a fundamental
> ubuntu(/Debian)-compatibility issue in the earlier versions (?)
>

I don't know exactly how Ubuntu have set things up, but this is the
HOWTO for our setup:

https://github.com/TigerVNC/tigervnc/blob/master/unix/vncserver/HOWTO.md

> It would be good to know what "- Ubuntu 24.04 packages have been added"
> means (for the 1.14 tigervnc release).
>

It means you can download packages for Ubuntu 24.04 from our release
page here:

https://github.com/TigerVNC/tigervnc/releases

Those can be used instead of the Ubuntu ones, to get our startup
handling instead.

Regards,
--
Pierre Ossman Software Development
Cendio AB https://cendio.com
Teknikringen 8 https://twitter.com/ThinLinc
583 30 Linköping https://facebook.com/ThinLinc

Henry Lockyer

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Apr 28, 2025, 6:05:10 PMApr 28
to TigerVNC User Discussion/Support
Thanks Pierre - I'm getting more of the picture now.  I will start again with 1.15 direct from yourselves. (Once I've worked out how to install it from Ubuntu!) 
I'm slightly concerned that the Xubuntu project may have done something to the 'small details' you refer to, compared to straight 'Ubuntu' which may cause more problems, though it seems it shouldn't be an issue.  
Anyway these are not essentially TigerVNC matters I suppose...
Regards/ Henry

Henry Lockyer

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May 3, 2025, 1:45:44 PMMay 3
to TigerVNC User Discussion/Support
I'm happy to report that after removing the ubuntu-provided 1.13,  the 1.15 ubuntu 24.04 package direct from yourselves is now installed and working. 
Thanks for the guidance, and of course the software :-)
Regards/ Henry

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