Setting up xserver on Ubuntu 6.06 server

URLs: http://www.realvnc.com , http://www.ubuntutips.net/node/7

On a plain 6.06 LTS server I wanted to install Xserver to test
something out, so, I did the following. The following is a quick
way of installing xwindows/xserver and accessing via VNC. There
are many places for improvement/customisation etc.

I executed the following command:

apt-get install gdm zenity ubuntu-artwork edubuntu-artwork xubuntu-default-settings gnome2-user-guide gnome-panel nautilus metacity libglib2.0-data libgnomevfs2-extra perl-doc debconf-utils libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg
apt-get install vnc-common xvncviewer

Then ran startx… xwindows started, but, errored about fonts missing.

The following commands covered this:
apt-get install xfonts-base
apt-get install xfs

Starting xserver now works, however, nothings been done to get access to it. To get this done quickly I installed the vnc4server package.

Needed to edit the sources.list apt configuration file to allow the universe repository and ran:
vi /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install vnc4server

Then, to set a password for the VNC server ran:

realvncpasswd

Entered password twice.. this created: /home/robert/.vnc/passwd

Then needed to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Added “Load “vnc”” to the Module section and “Option “PasswordFile” “/home/robert/.vnc/passwd”” to the Screen section.

Started xserver with: startx

This then said:

vncext: VNC extension running!
vncext: Listening for VNC connections on port 5900
vncext: created VNC server for screen 0

I fired up vnc on my local machine and could connect to the machines IP address & port 5900. (ip:5900) Once entering the password I was presented with the xwindows desktop.

It complained about a few packages missing so I ran the following. Below added a number of applications and removed the edubuntu artwork which I had accidently installed.

apt-get install gnome-panel gnome-applets
apt-get remove edubuntu-artwork
apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment gnome-orca gnome-lokkit