Now I have set up vnc on Xubuntu before, so why should it be so difficult this time? As before my guide was the extensive ubuntu forums thread. The thread has grown since I last looked and few new gotchas have emerged–although to be honest they are more figments of my imagination rather than real issues. The following are observations on what I learned (and in some cases “mis-learned”) from the thread.

One of the things that threw me were the references to vnc4server not working properly on 7.1 AMD64. My experience is that, if you get everything else right, the default vnc4server packages work fine.

Another thing that held me back was not being able to test the vnc installation with the local viewer. This made me think that it was not working when (perhaps) it was.

Checking the actual location of the fonts directories is something that carries over from the last experience, although I don’t think the location has changed since the last version.

The issue that had me foxed for the longest was the server_args string in /etc/xinted.d/Xvnc. While I was experimenting with tightvncserver and launching vncserver from the command line the option “-query localhost” had got lost form the string. As a result the vncviewer showed the X-windows grey screen, but no login page. A number of people had observered this problem in the thread, but nobody had been stupid enough to cause it by messing up the command to launch the server.

Along with several people who have commented on the thread, there were a number of times I had to wonder why I was struggling so hard to set up what should be a pretty simple vnc server. Other options are discussed in the thread, and I also have another ubuntu workstation that uses NoMachine NX for remote administration. But the main thing with vnc is that you get the option to power off and restart the machine. As the server runs “headless,” i.e. no screen, this is vital. I could certainly administer it through a terminal interface using SSH, but if I am going to have graphical remote access it might as well let me do everything I need to do.

With an expanding music collection I wanted to avoid the chore of backing up to multiple DVDs by building a RAID server so that at least a hard drive failure would not compromise the collection. This has not been as simple as I had hoped.

Mistake 1: I bought a motherboard specifically because it supported RAID5, but then decided I could not afford 3 disks and ended up using RAID 1. And anyway Linux can use software RAID rather than the Windows driver-based version supported by the motherboard.

I tried a number of approaches before this particular combination worked for me. I am sure there are other more elegant ways of achieving the same end, but hopefully my experience will save somebody else some time.

Starting point

This is a completely new system which has never been formatted. The key components for the installation are

• 2 identical 500GB SATA drives
• 64-bit PC (AMD64) alternate install CD for Xubuntu 7.1
• motherboard with AMD 4400+ processor and 1GB DD2 RAM

Installation Options

The main trick was to persuade the installer to give the options to set up the RAID array during installation. To get the options

1. boot from the alternate installation disk
2. at the main menu hold down F6 (options) until you get the choice of Normal and Expert mode
3. choose Expert mode
   • it can be worth a “dry run” in normal mode to get used to the principal installation options, but I could not see how to install a RAID system that way
4. start the installation
5. the console-based system is pretty tedious and I accepted the defaults for every step except …
6. when offered the choice to load additional modules choose the MD multi disk option
   • I am writing this from cryptic notes taken during the process so I am not sure of the exact names, but the key one is the multidisk option
   • The configuration I chose does not use LVM but I did selectLVM at this stage. I am not sure if it was ever used.
7. when the partitioner starts choose manual
   1. My configuration was to create a single big partition on both disks, for the RAID and a small swap partition on both disks which are left “un-RAID-ed”. This is not completely fault tolerant, but should be pretty easy to recover
   2. select the disk to partition
   3. create the main partition and set the Use As option to “Physical Volume for RAID” and set to be bootable
   4. create the swap partition and set Use As option to “swap”
8. (the following is what I noted down, but may be because I did not read the screen properly)
   1. after specifying the partitions on both disks choose the option to write the changes to disk
   2. a warning message was displayed that there was no active partition
   3. choose continue
   4. the partition manager page is displayed again but with a new option at the top to build the Software RAID
9. Software RAID installation is done through the MD administration module you added to the installation earlier.  The options I chose were
   1. RAID 1
   2. as /dev/md0
   3. 2 drives
   4. no spares
   5. sda1 and sdb1
10. When complete the MD administration returns you to the partitioner but there is now a new device to partition, a “RAID device.” Partition this as usual
    1. file system ext3
    2. mount at /
    3. (the bootable option is not available)
11. Write the changes to disk in Partitioner and this time there is no warning
12. The installation process continues as usual
13. When the GRUB installation page came up I chose the default option, i.e. install in the master boot  file of hd0.
    • This means the the RAID array will probably not boot if /dev/sda fails
    • If /dev/sda does fail the plan is to rewire /dev/sdb as /dev/sda (i.e. switch the connectors) and make it bootable with a rescue disk.
    • The RAID array would have to be rebuilt manually after adding a replacement /dev/sdb
14. The Xubuntu system now boots as normal with md0 as the active partition

The installation now appears to be operating properly and I have begun setting it up as a our local server.  Running cat /proc/mdstat suggests that RAID1 is working fine, and df shows a root partition on /dev/md0 which is the right size, but otherwise it is completely transparent.
Background Reading
As I have explained, the procedure above was the result of several abortive attempts to install a RAID filesystem and get it to boot.  During these experiments through to my eventual success I used the following pages and posts that provided help, reassurance and inspiration, even if I was not always able to follow their advice.  Thanks to all those who took the trouble to share what worked for them.

• Setting up software RAID in Ubuntu Server which showed that the key was getting the partitioner to so what I needed rather than just of “normal” mode options (this might suggest I should have used the ubuntu distribution installer not xubuntu)
• Software RAID HOWTO – Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) which shows how to install RAID as the data portion of the server rather than the root partition (now that might have been a better option).
• Software Raid on Ubuntu and Debian which has also advice on getting GRUB to work (but I have not experimented further with this)
• Installation/LVMOnRaid the Ubuntu Community Documentation page that most closely matched what I wanted to do, but it was not a very good match

Previous posts documented the trials of setting up VNC on Xubuntu for the old machine that runs as our family server. Since the install I have been careful not to include vncserver in any updates as it has a habit of breaking the setup, but this is not really viable long term.

While reading another post I came across NoMachine NX 3.0 improves remote access to Linux boxes which reminded me that I have been planning to look into NX as an alternative to vnc that would not be broken by Xubuntu updates. The post was not too encouraging but I went ahead with the help of Install NX Server on Ubuntu Dapper Drake.

Prepare Xubuntu

Installing glib libraries brought back memories of the early days of using linux. I suppose it is an inevitable consequence of open development but a bit of pain and a real barrier for new users.

Using synaptic install libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 (this advice came from the NX support site article for NX 1.5 so it may not really be necessary)

Download NX components

Downloading nxnode and nxclient DEB files from NoMachine Downloads was straightforward. Finding the free server was not entirely straighforward as there is now the desktop server. I chose to navigate from the homepage from the article on the free server.

Install from the command line

Again a bit of a throwback to earlier days, but just three commands executed from the directory where the installation DEB files were stored

dpkg -i nxclient-XXXXXXXi386.deb

dpkg -i nxnode-XXXXXXXi386.deb

dpkg -i nxserver-XXXXXXXi386.deb

I found I needed to install the nxclient before the nxnode because of dependencies.

Run the client

Everything had gone smoothly to this point, but it was here that I came across a problem that I only solved by trial and error.

The client install in Xubuntu and in Windows both created nice menu items making it easy to specify a connection. All would go well up to getting a remote desktop to come up in the nxclient window at which point the client reported that the it was unable to run the required file. The problem was that all the advice assumes a straightforward gnome-based Ubuntu installation and this is Xubuntu.

The configuration setting required for Xubuntu is

Desktop = Unix XDM

This gives you the Xubuntu login screen (just like vnc).

Still to do

At the moment this is running on the local network, but the intention is open things out. In which case I need/plan to change the port settings from 22 to something else as suggested in this blog post. I will also create a user specially for logging into the nxserver. NAT port forwarding also needs to be sorted out.

Controlling nxserver

This was not obvious from the scraps of documentation I used, probably because it is standard linux practice but as an aide memoire these are the commands to control the nxserver;

sudo /usr/NX/bin/nxserver –status/start/stop/restart

There are lots of other options, just run the command without the switches for a list

(More notes on making Ubuntu Edgy Eft do what I want it to do)

Freemind is my favourite open source mindmapping tool and it runs on java. The Freemind wiki has a section on adding it to Ubuntu and I used a bit of a mixture.

On a fresh installation of Ubuntu I started with 1.1.3.1 confirmed more easy install within Kubuntu 6.10 which worked as described first installing then fixing the installation of freemind. So I had an icon on the Applications menu that did nothing when clicked. Launching freemind from a console showed that there were things missing.

Using synaptic I installed sun-java5-jre (1.5.0-08-0ubuntu1) along with all its dependencies. Freemind now launches a treat.

The main purpose of getting the old PIII-based Ubuntu machine into a fit state was so that MySignificantOther could use it to access her work server using Citrix.

Her work has gone over totally to thinclient systems using Citrix to access word, excel, outlook and the customer account management system. The citrix plugin works nicely on a WinXP machine, but with everyone in the house using the internet as a principal source of entertainment as well as for work we needed a machine that could be “hers”.

As a thin client the old Ubuntu machine seemed like a good choice, and Citrix offer a free ICA client for unix. Installation has taken a few hours spread over the Christmas period, but we got there in the end.

The key advice came from /bin/false –help Install Guide for Citrix ICA Client on Ubuntu Breezy. Be sure to read the comments as there are updates and alternative suggestions for later versions (in my case Edgy), but it is all there!

Following this advice we were able to use the old machine to access MSO’s work, but it was a bit clunky. While everything worked fine I could not get the links on the Citrix desktop webpage in firefox 2 to launch. The work around was to save the .ica file on the desktop and then drag it onto the ICA client. (as a veteran of linux desktops I am amazed that this worked).

The trick to solving the problem is telling firefox which application to use to launch the .ica file. It is quite possible that this information is already in the /bin/false guide, but I did not see it. Instead the solution is to be found in the last step of the Citrix ICA Client How-To for Linux at wass.homelinux.net. Of the various executables in the ICAClient folder the one you need to point firefox at is: /usr/lib/ICAClient/wfica.

So MSO is all set. And I am sure that she will be a bit more comfortable with Ubuntu now that it acts more like it ought to.

[addendum: it would probably have been better to use the script at codetech than these other instructions, but sometimes you only find these things later]

I have been playing with various Linux distributions over the last few years, primarily as a way of getting a bit more life out of old hardware. While I am no expert there are some things that I like in a set up, and one of those things is vnc.

On my little home network I use vnc to manage the Linux fileserver that holds all the email and music and to help on the other Windows machines when other household members get stuck (or find something interesting). I expect vnc to start up as soon as the machine boots and I expect to be to login in remotely; and so far I have been able to do this on Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian and Windows installation without too much trouble.

Impressed by the press on Ubuntu I have installed it on an old IBM PIII that must be getting on for 10 years old. I use this machine to run vmware virtual machines for development work. It is a source continuing amusement that I have an ancient machine running Linux that pretends to be Windows 2003 Server, and sometimes two at the same time. But I don’t really use it that often so it was a minor inconvenience that vnc (using vino Remote Desktop) would only start once logged in.

But we now need another workstation. It will just be used for surfing and as a dumb terminal for Citrix, so the Ubuntu should be fine. But before it moves into that role I want to get vnc working what I call properly.

After a few false starts I found the best instructions for vnc running in its own sessions at ubuntu forums. However this is a long thread and there are a few gotchas, the answers are in the thread but 11 pages is a lot to work through. Just in case any needs to repeat the process these are the ones that caught me

• the path to fonts is different in Edgy Eft (why?) so the -fp statement should read /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc
  • get this wrong and vncserver will not run
• you must set up remote login to behave the same as local log in
  • while logged into ubuntu go to System>Administration>Login Window>Remote and select Same as Local.
  • if you don’t do this vnc will run and you can connect but all you get is a grey X windows screen

So now vnc starts when the machine starts and I can log in remotely. I can also have different users running at the same time.