Walt,
We have one Avance III spectrometer with CentOs &/KDE desktop, one
Avance Neo spectrometer running Alma Linux 9/Gnome desktop (all the
default Bruker installation), and a workstation/dataserver running
Fedora/XFCE desktop, and on all three I am using x11vnc as backed for
remote access in pretty much the same way. Instead of starting at
boot-up, I am starting x11vnc on demand using the -inetd option, so it
may not your "ideal" way, but it does not seem to depend on the DE. To
make it work I rely on xinetd which is now deprecated but which still
can be installed from older Fedora or Alma Linux repositories ( EL8 for
Alma Linux). There is supposed to be a way to use a systemd socket to
achieve the same goal, but I have not tried that yet.
My xinetd configuration looks something like that
(/etc/xinitd.d/vnc-server):
service x11vnc
{
disable = no
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
group = tty
wait = no
user = root
server = /usr/bin/x11vnc
server_args = -inetd -xkb -repeat -localhost -o /var/log/x11vnc.log
-noxdamage -display :0 -auth guess
}
For security, I do not open port 5900, but require ssh tunneling using a
vnc viewer that supports it, or connect through xrdp using Windows
remote desktop, so I do not set a vnc password. The latter makes it
easy for Windows users to connect.
The pertinant portion of my /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini file looks something like this:
[X11vnc]
name=Avance400 Main Desktop
lib=libvnc.so
username
k
password
k
pamusername=same
pampassword=same
ip7.0.0.1
portY00
I believe one should be able to have a setup where x11vnc is started at
bootup as a service, I think one has to ensure that x11vnc does not
terminate when a user disconnects. One caveat is that I am running
lightdm instead of gdm as display/login manager, not sure whether that
makes a difference, I mainly use it to more easily customize the login screen.
Don't hesitate asking me for further details, it is possible that some
important detail of the setup slipped my mind.
Holger
On 9/9/2025 2:07 PM, Walter Massefski via groups.io wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>
> Bruker is recommending the Xfce desktop environment for AlmaLinux 9
> installations; in the past, we have used x11vnc for our CentOS/KDE
> linux environment, but I am having trouble getting x11vnc to work with
> Xfce in an ideal way (an 'ideal way' is to start the vnc server at
> boot time). I’m looking for 1) suggestions for vnc setups that work
> well with Xfce (including explicit setup instructions), or 2)
> suggestions for how to make x11vnc work with Xfce, or 3) comments
> about continuing to use KDE’s Plasma desktop environment. Thanks!
>
> Walt
> -------------------------------
>
> Walter Massefski, Ph.D.
> Director
> Department of Chemistry Instrumentation Facility
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> 77 Mass. Ave. Rm: 18-0090
> Cambridge, MA 02139
> T: (617) 253-2016
> wwm_at_mit.edu
>
--
Frank H. Foersterling
Instrumentation Specialist
CHM B-10
Department of Chemistry
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
414-229-5896(Lab) 414-229-5035 (Teams)
holger_at_uwm.edu
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Received on Wed Sep 10 2025 - 12:03:43 MST