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I run my Raspberry Pi with Raspbian with an X server running but without a monitor connected to it. I installed tightvncserver and now running:

vncserver :1 -geometry 1600x900 -depth 24

I can have a lightdm desktop session to connect to.

However, in this way, a totally new lightdm desktop session is created. This session is different from the one I see on my TV and that eats up another 20 megs of RAM. Obviously, this is not the best solution that can be achieved.

So I installed vino: I've already used it in Ubuntu with almost no problems at all. However, on Raspbian, I'm facing a weird problem when trying to have it launched after the first lightdm login. Given that Desktop Session Settings doesn't allow to add new entries via its graphical interface, I created a vino-server.desktop launcher (that calls /usr/lib/vino/vino-server) and I moved it to /etc/xdg/autostart/. This method also used to work in Knoppix, so I was somewhat confident. In fact, within Desktop Session Settings the new launcher was present and enabled.

After a reboot, no /usr/lib/vino/vino-server process was running. However, I know that the procedure is almost correct, because if I launch another vncserver session, I can see a vino-server process popping up inside the process list.

So the question is: what am I doing wrong? Why does this method work for any other lightdm session except the main one?

Avio
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1 Answers1

5

Finally I've made it! The procedure was almost correct. I was just missing a few little details.

First, the timings: putting /usr/lib/vino/vino-server directly in lightdm autostart launched it before the X session was completely set-up. So I wrapped it into a script with a little bit of delay before the command:

#!/bin/bash

sleep 5
/usr/lib/vino/vino-server &

In turn, this script was called by a vino-server.desktop launcher, placed into /etc/xdg/autostart/ directory.

Second, permissions: the lightdm config file /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf was enabling autologin for user pi:

#> grep ^autologin /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

autologin-user=pi

But I already created my own user and the wrapper script was in my home folder, so some weird permission issue was preventing its execution. I changed the autologin-user setting in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to my user, and now everything works fine. Finally I can access my :0 display through VNC right after boot.

Avio
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