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TurboVNC and lightdm problems

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Anonymous
2012-07-12
2013-11-26
  • Anonymous

    Anonymous - 2012-07-12

    Hello,

    Is there no support for lightdm as a display manager with turboVNC ?

    I have tried to connect to my turboVNC server with lightdm as the default display manager but all I got on the client side was the background.

    I switched to gdm and everything seemed to be working fine.

    So my question is if there is support for lightDM or will it be supported with any future releases of TurboVNC?

    I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 bit Desktop Edition as my server

    Thank you for your time

     
  • DRC

    DRC - 2012-07-12

    I was not aware of any problem before now.  I'll have to look into it.

     
  • DRC

    DRC - 2012-07-13

    Actually, maybe not.  I'm confused as to why you're referring to lightdm, which is a display manager, not a window manager, in the context of TurboVNC.  I am aware of a problem with VirtualGL's config script (vglserver_config) not working properly with lightdm, but TurboVNC doesn't use the display manager.

     
  • Anonymous

    Anonymous - 2012-07-17

    I'm not sure what the problem is exactly.

    When I connect to my vncserver on the client side I only have the background. I have no keyboard input, nor the unity menu, nor  doest the right click work.

    Switching the display manager to GDM seemed to fix the problem, I really don't undestand why.

    I just tested with TigerVNC and I have the same problem when using lightDM.

     
  • Anonymous

    Anonymous - 2012-07-17

    I just tryed switching back to lightdm but the window manager is not working at all.

    I had a shortcut to a folder on my desktop, and when I click it I don't have the top part of the window (containing cross, maximaze etc.) at all.

     
  • DRC

    DRC - 2012-07-17

    I think multiple issues are being confused here.  The issue with the window manager being displayed without menus or taskbar and being unusable is this issue:

    https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualgl/forums/forum/401860/topic/5425279

    The system is attempting to invoke Unity 3D as the default window manager, which doesn't work with TurboVNC.  Thus, you have to modify xstartup.turbovnc as instructed in the link above.

    As to why that is only occurring with lightdm, I don't know.  It may be that lightdm sets Unity 3D as its default window manager and GDM doesn't.

    Now, once you have the window manager displaying correctly with menus and everything, there is a second issue, which is a legitimate bug in TurboVNC 1.1:

    https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3543411&group_id=117509&atid=678327

    This is still being investigated, and the workaround is to temporarily downgrade to 1.0.2.  I believe this is what you're describing vis-a-vis the windows not containing cross/maximize/etc.  The pixels in the titlebar are corrupted for some reason.

     
  • Anonymous

    Anonymous - 2012-07-18

    Thank you very much for your replies.

    With you're suggestions it is working.

    Just one last question, what problems can lightdm - vglserver_config cause ? I ran the script, but when I wanted to start the vncserver it gave me a very vague error "System has repported an error." and then Compiz crashed.

    After rebooting there were no more errors when starting the vncserver.

    Can this have any consecuences, or should I do some of the configuration manually ?

    Thank you again for your help.

     
  • DRC

    DRC - 2012-07-18

    Well, again, I think the issues are being confused.  TurboVNC doesn't work with compiz.

    The issue with vglserver_config has nothing to do with TurboVNC.  vglserver_config simply needs to be extended so that it modifies the lightdm config files in the same way it modifies the gdm config files- that is, so that it causes vglgenkey to be run whenever the display manager starts.  vglgenkey is what grants VirtualGL permission to use display :0, so if it isn't executed, you'll get authentication errors on display :0 when trying to launch an app with vglrun.  Again, however, this has no bearing on the operation of TurboVNC.

     
  • Anonymous

    Anonymous - 2012-07-19

    Thank you for your help so far, I am aware that vglconfig is another issue but I would like to set that up as well with vglusers group, I'm sorry I didn't express myself correctly.

    I want to configure VirtualGL with the vglusers group as well.

    I am having problems though, after running vglserver_config .
    I restricted everything to vglusers group, followed the documentation but I can not execute
    xauth merge /etc/opt/VirtualGL/vgl_xauth_key
    The vgl_xauth_key never gets created.

    If I start the server phisically, and log in to my machine phisically vglrun works just fine.

    If I don't log in though the I get errors on display :0 if trying to vglrun something with TurboVNC.

    I tried modifying lightdm.conf to execute vglgenkey just before executing lightdm, but this way lighDM didn't start up at all.
    I checked and vglgenkey is in the path so that can't be the problem.

     
  • DRC

    DRC - 2012-07-19

    yes, this is a known issue. It is not fruitful to discuss it further until I able to add the necessary functionality. Use gdm as a workaround. Every minute I spend answering your questions is a minute I can't spend adding lightdm support.