Transport your Ubuntu desktop anywhere
Recently I moved back to doing my main work on an Ubuntu machine and, while working remotely, have wanted to get access to the desktop. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to transport the Ubuntu graphical desktop using VNC. Here's how I do it.
On my Mac laptop, I run a VNC server (in my case, the peculiarly-named "Chicken of the VNC") in listen mode, then connect back to the office with the VPN, and execute x11vnc on my desktop like this:
x11vnc -display :0 -xkb --connect mylaptop.local
You will have to install the x11vnc package first, it's not part of the default install. Some explanation of the command line options:
-
-display :0– when I ssh in, it will make the display forwarded to my local machine, which isn't what I want. The ":0" is the name of the default running display on Ubuntu -
-xkb– unless you use this, you'll have problems with keyboard mapping, such as the shift key not working -
--connect mylaptop.local– substitute mylaptop.local for the name or IP address of your machine
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