VNC on CentOS 5.5 + Gnome

Question

Hi Guys/gals

I have successfully started a vncserver and can connect to it through the browser via 111.111.111.111:5081.

It looks like it's working because I do see the Gnome cursor (X).

However, apart from the cursor I just have a black screen. No taskbar or anything. Right click provides nothing either.

Does anyone have any idea what I need to do to get the full desktop ? I have created a new user and wondered if there is any settings that need changing.

Thanks in advance,

Alex

Answer 1

Your VNC server is running, but there is nothing running in it. No window manager, no desktop environment (GNOME), nothing. The cursor you are seeing is a Xserver cursor, not a GNOME cursor.

That probably means you ran the VNC server directly without using some of the friendly wrapper scripts such as vncserver. For example, if you have tightvnc installed and you run Xtightvnc directly, that's what you'll get.

For example, I usually start a VNC session (or port 5901) like this:

vncserver -geometry 1024x768 :1

Alternately, you can use x11vnc to serve your existing X desktop (instead of starting a new one in the background).