My wife needs to spend several days working from a different room in the house. My first thought was to move her desktop computer there, but that's a lot of work, and then she would be unable to use her usual workroom. My second thought was to set up a laptop, but she wouldn't have access to her files and the applications installed on her desktop, unless I went to a lot of effort duplicating her desktop environment and copying files back and forth.*

Then it hit me: what she really needs is a Remote Graphical Terminal so that she can use the laptop to directly access her desktop. Basically the laptop functions as the keyboard, screen, and mouse for her desktop. The desktop holds all the files, and runs all the applications. We had this ability back in the days we ran Xandros Linux, but I so rarely used it that I never got around to installing it on our current distro (Debian).

The magic phrase is Virtual Network Computing, VNC for short. I need to install a VNC server on her desktop, and a VNC client on the remote terminal (the laptop).

Alas, if you web-search for "Debian VNC server", you'll find a lot of information, but very little advice, and no tutorials. So here's what I was able to piece together from a few web pages, and some trial and error.

VNC Server, on Debian 9 "Stretch" 64-bit

Of the VNC servers listed on this Ubuntu help page, the one that worked for me was x11vnc. This is easy to install from the Debian repository.

That Ubuntu page describes a rather long command-line incantation to start the server:


...substituting, of course, her Linux user name. This will keep running until she shuts down the computer.

One feature of x11vnc that I strongly desired is that it duplicates her desktop screen on the laptop. If you move the mouse on one computer, you see the motion on both screens; whatever windows are open on one are visible on both. I find this useful. Some VNC servers, instead, give the laptop computer its own, independent, graphical display -- allowing two users to do different things at the same time. It's all a matter of what you need.

VNC Client, on Linux Mint 18 "Sylvia" 32-bit

Searching for VNC clients is equally frustrating -- like automobile brands, everyone has a favorite. I settled on xvnc4viewer, which can be installed from the Mint repository. Once it's installed, I can open a terminal window and type a much simpler incantation:


Where HERDESKTOP is the IP address, on our local network, of the desktop computer.

F8 brings up a popup menu, where you can click "Exit Viewer" when done.


* Yes, I know how to use rsync.