TightVNC won't work the way I want it to

[ranzig]

Hey everyone,

I got my Raspi two days ago and I love it so far, even though I don't know that much about Linux. I'm running the standard Raspbian Wheezy.

I just spent half a day trying to figure out how I could get a remote connetion to work. I kind of does, but not the way I hoped it would. I'm not sure if my idea of a remote connection is completely wrong - I'd love you guys to just tell me I need to change a couple of settings and everything is fine.

The client I'm trying to use is a Windows 7 laptop.
Here is what happens when I start the connection:
On the client's screen, I can see the Desktop of my Raspi, but no open windows (despite having open windows on the Raspi) and no running programs in the taskbar. I can open apps and files, they work fine on the client PC, but the host screens shows nothing; the only thing that indicates activity is the CPU usage monitor in the taskbar, which always matches the one I see on the client's screen. I can use the mouse cursors of both computers seperately.

Is this the way it should be? I expected the screen on the Raspi to show what I do on the client and vice versa, is that possible?

Thanks so much for your help and sorry for my english, I can try to put it differently if you don't understand what I'm trying to say...

all the best!
ranzig

[crackers]

There are two X-sessions running: one directly from the Pi when you ran startx, the other via VNC. You will need to "clone" the primary display (or just do everything via VNC and don't run startx on the Pi).

[tenochtitlanuk]

I was wondering the same q as the OP.
So how DO you clone the display?
As in GoToMyPC or Citrix, I'd hoped to be able to 'take over' someone else's X-session in order to be able to help them...

[ghans]

x11vnc can share the primary physical display (:0) ,
where other VNC servers spawn more virtual desktops by
default.

ghans

[FTrevorGowen]

ranzig,
You might find the (Tight)VNC guides on the wiki (http://elinux.org/RPi_Guides) of some help. I didn't have an HDMI/DVI monitor when I bought my first Pi and found them useful - I was able to get a "remote desktop" either via Windows XP or Ubuntu (my netbook is dual-boot). For Secure Shell login (i.e via ssh) PuTTY is available for Windows or Linux and supports X11 forwarding - ie. you can start a "gui-program" from the shell and it will forward the display to the Windows/Linux m/c. Follow the link on the right to my homepages for examples of PuTTY setups etc.
Trev.

[ranzig]

Hi again,

thank you all so much! I installed x11vnc, now everything works perfect. Gonna figure out how to set up Samba now so I can run the Pi as a headless file server.

Have a good evening!
ranzig