Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

kjans · 2014-12-27 22:29:10

Hi all,

There have been some discussion over the Internet on how it would be possible to extend the desktop of your Linux computer over the network to some remote device. It is useful for example for using some random desktop computer or a tablet as the secondary screen for your laptop. (The users of multihead systems understand what a pain it is to be stuck with only single a monitor ) Unfortunately no good and simple ways have been found this far on how to do it.
For example Xdmx isn't really a plug and play solution, like connecting an external monitor, tools like Synergy do not provide real multihead support, but just enable you to control the remote computer using your mouse and keyboard and the xrandr -fb + x11vnc -clip method is ugly and does not appear to work correctly on recent systems.

Last night I was also thinking about the problem and came up with another soltution:
Because of a bug/feature in X/RandR/Intel driver/whatever it is possible to use the xrandr tool to enable a disconnected interfaces by manually setting display mode and then enabling them. From there on the idea is actually quite simple - you just extend your desktop to some disaplay interface that is not connected at the moment, like VGA1 for example and then just use x11vnc -clip to send the picture of the non-connected display to some other computer using the VNC protocol.

Commands
I will list the steps on how to make the following configuration:
* The laptop screen is LVDS1
* We are using the VGA1 output for the VNC server (no VGA monitor is connected)
* The resolution of the VNC monitor will be 1280x1024
* We are extending the desktop to the left of the laptop's screen

Step 1: Generate modeline for the resolution of the vpn screen you are going to use with your VNC display.
If xrandr already show the desired mode for any of the displays, generating a new one is not needed, we can use the existing one. If this is the case, you can jump directly to step 3.
Any random number can be used for the frequency, as we are not using the mode with any real monitor.

gtf 1280 1024 60

This command generates the following modeline:

Modeline "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync

Step 2: Generate a new mode based on the modeline we got from step 1.

xrandr --newmode "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync

Step 3: Add the desired mode to our disconnected output:

xrandr --addmode VGA1 1280x1024_60.00

Step 4: Enable the disconnected monitor using the newly added mode and use it to extend the desktop to the left of LVDS1:

xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024_60.00 --left-of LVDS1

This extends your desktop to the invisible monitor on your left. At this point you can't see it's picture but you can move your mouse there and drag your windows there.

Step 5: Export the invisible part of your desktop using VNC

x11vnc -clip 1280x1024+0+0

Step 6: VNC viewer
Some kind of VNC viewer that supports showing the remote cursor is needed. For Arch client I was unable get this functionality to work in TigerVNC that is provided in the official repos, but TightVNC from AUR seems to work fine.
Also by doing some testing, I was able to find out that the tight encoding seems to be the best. Be sure to enable it.
To start the VNC viewer run this on the remote computer:

vncviewer -encodings "tight copyrect"

After that you are asked the ip address of the remote computer. (Note that the numbpad Enter does not seem to work there for some reason)

Performance
The testing was done using a local area network (VNC server and client connected to the the same router, server connected using WiFi, client connected using an Ethernet cable), VNC screen at 1280x1024 resolution and full colors, using the tight encoding.

To test it I tried showing a HD movie on the VNC screen. To my surprise, the movie was actually watchable, but not perfect as the framerate was still too low but it was enough to understand what's going on in the movie.
Also, as of right now, the VNC client is configured to display the remote cursor, which makes the cursor a bit laggy at times, so maybe it would be possible to use Synergy or something similar to directly control the cursor on the VNC viewer computer instead go get better cursor performance.

Also, as this solution uses a real video output for the VNC screen, the remote screen actually acts as a real monitor and you can drag windows easily between the screens and all windows maximized on the VNC display maximize only over that display, not over the entire X screen. Also you get a full hardware graphics acceleration on your VNC screen. True, the lag that VNC introduces to the screen kinda makes the acceleration useless, but at least you can have your transparent terminal

Drivers
This trick works on the more or less recent Intel drivers on an Optimus/Bumblebee system. It would be fun to know if this trick is also repeatable using other drivers.

That's all, sorry for the long post and I hope someone finds it useful

xpt · 2015-01-23 15:09:17

Hi! thanks for the post
I did using VIRTUAL1, not VGA1
and I connected with a tablet, works fine

kjans · 2015-01-24 13:50:08

I am glad you found it useful
And yes, any output should work, including the VIRTUAL outputs.
Just out of curiosity, do you use an Android tablet, and if so, what VNC viewer app are you using? I haven't had much time to test this with a tablet and the couple of apps I tested all weren't too good (problems with correctly displaying the remote cursor etc.)

graysky · 2015-01-24 14:33:13

probably better for the wiki than in the bbs

denilsonsa · 2015-04-15 19:41:55

Great idea, kjans! A few comments, though:

I've added the extra screen to VIRTUAL1, and it had a different resolution than my main laptop display. Then, when I tried using "x11vnc", I had a weird black rectangle when I supplied the coordinates to "-clip". However, I could just use "-clip xinerama1" instead, which was easier and bug-free. See:

# For some reason, this left me with a weird black rectangle in the VNC output.
x11vnc -clip 1920x1080+1366+0
# However, this one worked fine:
x11vnc -clip xinerama1

It is worth checking out the documentation of x11vnc options, the "-forever" option is quite useful. If using TightVNC on the client, "-tightfilexfer" can be useful too.

I've encapsulated all the code to create and add a new modeline to VIRTUAL1 here:

#!/bin/sh
add_modeline() {
	local modeline name
	modeline="$(gtf "$2" "$3" "$4" | sed -n 's/.*Modeline "\([^" ]\+\)" \(.*\)/\1 \2/p')"
	name="$(echo "${modeline}" | sed 's/\([^ ]\+\) .*/\1/')"
	if [ -z "${modeline}" -o -z "${name}" ] ; then
		echo "Error! modeline='${modeline}' name='${name}'"
		exit 1
	fi
	xrandr --delmode "$1" "${name}"
	xrandr --rmmode "${name}"
	xrandr --newmode ${modeline}
	xrandr --addmode "$1" "${name}"
}

add_modeline VIRTUAL1 1920 1080 60

The code is also on my BitBucket repository: https://bitbucket.org/denilsonsa/small_ … delines.sh

Then, all I needed was to create a xrandr command-line to set up the VIRTUAL1 at the correct position. I've done that using ARandR. (self-promotion: my project arandr-indicator can be quite useful for switching between monitor layouts quickly)

Last edited by denilsonsa (2015-04-15 19:42:53)

predacon · 2015-11-08 22:34:59

Can you help me guys? I've rearch on google and cant find a easy solution. My problem is my graphics card who dont have analogic outputs, so i cannot set "step 3" on this guide. xrandr only show me from DFP1 to DFP7 and I dont have any "VGA or VIRTUAL1"
Give me some ideas please.

jasonwryan · 2015-11-08 22:37:45

Moving to Community Contributions if this is to become a support, rather than discussion, thread...

jirkatvrdon3 · 2018-02-09 10:01:03

kjans wrote:

Hi all,
There have been some discussion over the Internet on how it would be possible to extend the desktop of your Linux computer over the network to some remote device. It is useful for example for using some random desktop computer or a tablet as the secondary screen for your laptop. (The users of multihead systems understand what a pain it is to be stuck with only single a monitor ) Unfortunately no good and simple ways have been found this far on how to do it.
For example Xdmx isn't really a plug and play solution, like connecting an external monitor, tools like Synergy do not provide real multihead support, but just enable you to control the remote computer using your mouse and keyboard and the xrandr -fb + x11vnc -clip method is ugly and does not appear to work correctly on recent systems.
Last night I was also thinking about the problem and came up with another soltution:
Because of a bug/feature in X/RandR/Intel driver/whatever it is possible to use the xrandr tool to enable a disconnected interfaces by manually setting display mode and then enabling them. From there on the idea is actually quite simple - you just extend your desktop to some disaplay interface that is not connected at the moment, like VGA1 for example and then just use x11vnc -clip to send the picture of the non-connected display to some other computer using the VNC protocol.
Commands
I will list the steps on how to make the following configuration:
* The laptop screen is LVDS1
* We are using the VGA1 output for the VNC server (no VGA monitor is connected)
* The resolution of the VNC monitor will be 1280x1024
* We are extending the desktop to the left of the laptop's screen
Step 1: Generate modeline for the resolution of the vpn screen you are going to use with your VNC display.
If xrandr already show the desired mode for any of the displays, generating a new one is not needed, we can use the existing one. If this is the case, you can jump directly to step 3.
Any random number can be used for the frequency, as we are not using the mode with any real monitor.
gtf 1280 1024 60
This command generates the following modeline:
Modeline "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync
Step 2: Generate a new mode based on the modeline we got from step 1.
xrandr --newmode "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync
Step 3: Add the desired mode to our disconnected output:
xrandr --addmode VGA1 1280x1024_60.00
Step 4: Enable the disconnected monitor using the newly added mode and use it to extend the desktop to the left of LVDS1:
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024_60.00 --left-of LVDS1
This extends your desktop to the invisible monitor on your left. At this point you can't see it's picture but you can move your mouse there and drag your windows there.
Step 5: Export the invisible part of your desktop using VNC
x11vnc -clip 1280x1024+0+0
Step 6: VNC viewer
Some kind of VNC viewer that supports showing the remote cursor is needed. For Arch client I was unable get this functionality to work in TigerVNC that is provided in the official repos, but TightVNC from AUR seems to work fine.
Also by doing some testing, I was able to find out that the tight encoding seems to be the best. Be sure to enable it.
To start the VNC viewer run this on the remote computer:
vncviewer -encodings "tight copyrect"
After that you are asked the ip address of the remote computer. (Note that the numbpad Enter does not seem to work there for some reason)
Performance
The testing was done using a local area network (VNC server and client connected to the the same router, server connected using WiFi, client connected using an Ethernet cable), VNC screen at 1280x1024 resolution and full colors, using the tight encoding.
To test it I tried showing a HD movie on the VNC screen. To my surprise, the movie was actually watchable, but not perfect as the framerate was still too low but it was enough to understand what's going on in the movie.
Also, as of right now, the VNC client is configured to display the remote cursor, which makes the cursor a bit laggy at times, so maybe it would be possible to use Synergy or something similar to directly control the cursor on the VNC viewer computer instead go get better cursor performance.
Also, as this solution uses a real video output for the VNC screen, the remote screen actually acts as a real monitor and you can drag windows easily between the screens and all windows maximized on the VNC display maximize only over that display, not over the entire X screen. Also you get a full hardware graphics acceleration on your VNC screen. True, the lag that VNC introduces to the screen kinda makes the acceleration useless, but at least you can have your transparent terminal
Drivers
This trick works on the more or less recent Intel drivers on an Optimus/Bumblebee system. It would be fun to know if this trick is also repeatable using other drivers.
That's all, sorry for the long post and I hope someone finds it useful

Hi,
sorry for replying on old post.
I am having keyboard problem .
When i am writing or deleting i need to press for i.e. five characters to write five characters instead of just holding one for small period of time .

it is just after i connect to vnc server (problem is on server. i cant try it on a client)

Have you encountered with this issue ?

jirkatvrdon3 · 2018-02-09 10:19:27

I solved it
just run after the client connects :

xset r

and it should work.

Slithery · 2018-02-09 15:56:37

Time for you to sleep now, old thread.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-27 22:29:10

Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#2 2015-01-23 15:09:17

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#3 2015-01-24 13:50:08

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#4 2015-01-24 14:33:13

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#5 2015-04-15 19:41:55

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#6 2015-11-08 22:34:59

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#7 2015-11-08 22:37:45

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#8 2018-02-09 10:01:03

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#9 2018-02-09 10:19:27

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

#10 2018-02-09 15:56:37

Re: Extending desktop over VNC, the easy way

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