I’ve been trying to set up a machine with the following requirement:
- accessible desktop environment both remote and local
- the same desktop environment in both
- both can run be in use simultaneously
- the local one and the remote one do not have to share the same content (not screen sharing).
The best I get is that the console DE works while the vncserver remote either goes to a grey/black screen when the console is logged in or the console goes back to the login screen w/o getting into the desktop when the remote vncserver is logged in.
Is there some magic I have to put into the xstartup file to make it work?
Right now the machine has both KDE-Plasma and Cinnamon on it. I installed tigervnc per most of the vanilla instructions I found in many various places using ssh to get to the machine:
<console desktop environment is currently using KDE-Plasma (X11)>
<vncserver remote desktop environment is using Cinnamon>
<no xstartup script at all>
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ sudo apt install tigervnc-standalone-server tigervnc-common
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ vncserver
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ vncserver -kill :1
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ vim .vnc/config
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ cat .vnc/config
session=cinnamon
geometry=1920x1080
localhost=no
alwaysshared
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ sudo vim /etc/tigervnc/vncserver.users
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ cat /etc/tigervnc/vncserver.users
# TigerVNC User assignment
#
# This file assigns users to specific VNC display numbers.
# The syntax is <display>=<username>. E.g.:
#
# :2=andrew
# :3=lisa
:1=dan
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ sudo systemctl start tigervncserver@:1
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ sudo systemctl enable tigervncserver@:1
dan@gozer-pihole:~$ sudo systemctl status tigervncserver@:1
? tigervncserver@:1.service - Remote desktop service (VNC)
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/tigervncserver@.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2025-01-21 21:25:49 PST; 14h ago
Main PID: 4894 (tigervncsession)
Tasks: 0 (limit: 9305)
Memory: 436.0K
CPU: 32ms
CGroup: /system.slice/system-tigervncserver.slice/tigervncserver@:1.service
? 4894 /usr/sbin/tigervncsession dan :1
Jan 21 21:25:49 gozer-pihole systemd[1]: Starting tigervncserver@:1.service - Remote desktop service (VNC)...
Jan 21 21:25:49 gozer-pihole tigervncsession[4894]: pam_unix(tigervnc:session): session opened for user dan(uid=1000) by (uid=0)
Jan 21 21:25:49 gozer-pihole systemd[1]: Started tigervncserver@:1.service - Remote desktop service (VNC).
And this all works fine, but I really want the two to be using the same desktop environment, be it KDE or Cinnamon.
