I'm installing XUbuntu 7 as a 'hypervisor' on my desktop pc.

  1. Partitioned a 9 GB / partition and a 2 GB swap partition
  2. Booted the livecd and told it to install
  3. Reboot when install done
  4. Settings/Login Window/Remote
    1. Style=Same as Local
    2. Configure XDMCP:
      • Turn OFF "Honor indirect requests"
  5. sudo apt-get install xinetd
  6. sudo apt-get install x11vnc
    1. This is because the built-in System/Preferences/Remote Desktop does not support clipboard transfer.
    2. I *could* use TightVNC server, but it doesn't seem to be possible to make it share display 0 with the real console.
    3. In addition to clipboard transfer, I think x11vnc supports some of the TightVNC enchantments to base VNC, so it works well with a TightVNC client.
  7. sudo vi /etc/gdm/Init/Default
    •  Add to the end, just before the "exit 0": "/usr/bin/x11vnc -display WAIT:0 -rfbauth /home/kevin/.vnc/passwd -o /var/log/x11vnc.log -forever -bg -shared -loop -noxdamage &"
    • Note: Until I added -noxdamage, I had the symptom that when the VNC client connected, it would display the current content of the desktop (good), but zero update/refresh/repaint happened (bad). Keyboard and mouse input was getting passed to the server, but no screen updates from the server were getting displayed.  XDamage is an extension to XWindows that attempts to detect "damaged" windows (i.e. they need to be repainted).
    • Note: I tried NoMachine's NX with its "shadow" of the console, and it had the same problem.  I was unable to tell NX not to use XDamage, so I uninstalled it.
  8. sudo vi /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom (didn't record the changes)

Download vmware player tar format

  1. gunzip *.tar.gz
  2. tar -xvf *.tar
  3. cd vmware*
  4. sudo ./vmware-install.pl
  5. take the default on all prompts