Bug 1882295

Summary:	tigervnc-server is missing vncserver
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Dov Grobgeld <dov.grobgeld>
Component:	tigervnc	Assignee:	Jan Grulich <jgrulich>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	32	CC:	fedora, jgrulich, vonsch
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Last Closed:	2020-09-24 09:33:28 UTC	Type:	Bug
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Description Dov Grobgeld 2020-09-24 09:26:13 UTC

Description of problem:

In one of the latest updates the program `vncserver` disappeared from the package tigervnc-server. This is a program that I am using for creating "shared containers" of several programs, e.g. in zoom presentations.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

tigervnc-server-1.11.0-1.fc32.x86_64

How reproducible:

$ vncserver
zsh: vncserver: command not found...
Install package 'tigervnc-server' to provide command 'vncserver'? [N/y]

(Note that it suggests installing tigervnc-server, even though it no longer contains vncserver!)

Steps to Reproduce:

Actual results:



Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 1 Jan Grulich 2020-09-24 09:33:28 UTC

Hi,

vncserver is missing, because Tigervnc server is now supposed to be started over systemd. There is a HOWTO.md file installed with the package, unfortunately it was missing in the initial version, but latest build which will go to updates-testing already has it. There will also be again vncserver, but just as a script which will inform the user to read the documentation.

Comment 2 Dov Grobgeld 2020-09-26 04:58:08 UTC

Thanks for the answer. For my use case this change is a regression.

I'm using vncserver for creating ad hoc temporary x11 servers for two purposes:

1. Teaching - I'm allowing some else to connect so that they can view my session.
2. Zoom - I'm creating a virtual desktop that I'm then screensharing in order to group several applications together, or one application that has popup windows.

In both these cases I may want to customize the vncserver when launching. E.g. change the size and the color depth of the created Xvnc server. This cannot be done easily through systemd and vncsession.

Meanwhile I worked around this regression by restoring the vncserver script from the tigervnc repo, and modifying it to suit my purposes. But you may want to consider whether there are other users that use vncserver similarly.

Comment 3 Jan Grulich 2020-09-28 06:06:43 UTC

(In reply to Dov Grobgeld from comment #2)
> Thanks for the answer. For my use case this change is a regression.
> 
> I'm using vncserver for creating ad hoc temporary x11 servers for two
> purposes:
> 
> 1. Teaching - I'm allowing some else to connect so that they can view my
> session.
> 2. Zoom - I'm creating a virtual desktop that I'm then screensharing in
> order to group several applications together, or one application that has
> popup windows.
> 
> In both these cases I may want to customize the vncserver when launching.
> E.g. change the size and the color depth of the created Xvnc server. This
> cannot be done easily through systemd and vncsession.

You can customize it. There is either /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-defaults where you configure your default configuration for everyone or you can do this per user, where you create ~/.vnc/config and there you put your configuration. This is all described in /usr/share/doc/tigervnc/HOWTO.md file.

Comment 4 Dov Grobgeld 2020-12-14 11:54:14 UTC

I'm sorry (and also for the delay in answering), but for my use case I use different configurations depending on what I'm using vnc for, as I outlined above. If I can't control features through the command line, it means that I have to juggle different config files and copy them into place place before launching the vnc server. Feasible, but as user unfriendly as if I had to edit a file to change parameters for ls or cp.