[HowTo] Install a vnc server on the Raspberry pi

HowTo
61

Yes get it working to.

but need for the most of it sudo to do the work.

Very nice work at all, maybe a script for the configuration would be nice. May not for all but for someone who is not so firm with it.

Thanks a lot.

1 Like
62

There is a script for the conf :slight_smile:
After you compile the server, there are these steps:

cp dispmanx_vncserver.conf.sample /etc/dispmanx_vncserver.conf
vi /etc/dispmanx_vncserver.conf

Thats the conf fileā€¦Iā€™ve set my framerate to 23 there and you can also change the port and password there as well.
It looks like this:

relative = false;
port = 0;
screen = 0;
unsafe = false;
fullscreen = false;
multi-threaded = false;
password = "";
frame-rate = 23;
downscale = false;
63

Uh yes, sorry I mean for this part:

Sorry I wasnā€™t that clear I didnā€™t the conf file for the vnc.

64

oh the service script. Yeah its a ā€˜scaryā€™ thing to do but its not that hard, if you follow the steps

65

Yes thats right good walkthrough from you but I prefer nano als editor not so minimalistic

66

Btw. is it update resistant?

1 Like
67

yup. unless osmc adds a vnc server in the App storeā€¦but even thenā€¦it has to have the same name as the executable for something bad to happen.
Even if they did release one though, i am not sure if it is going to be better than this one. This one has very good frame rates and it stays idle when you are not connected, so it doesnt eat up your cpu.

68

Hi there, I got it working using patrikolaussons github repo and installing the dependencies via aptitude as apt was always failing on the libvncserver-dev which apparently had bad dependencies.

Now when I am logging in with vnc viewer from my laptop via vnc viewer the performance is really low - like I see actual frames that are refreshing (top to bottomā€¦) and the server hardly reaches 10fps. All that while raspberryā€™s load is far below 1ā€¦

Any solution on how to speed it up? Like this I couldnā€™t use it to watch videos at all.

thx!

69

I hadnā€™t no problems with dependencies did you do an apt-get update?

You can change the framerate there:

vi /etc/dispmanx_vncserver.conf

Thats the conf fileā€¦Iā€™ve set my framerate to 23 there and you can also change the port and password there as well.
It looks like this:

relative = false;
port = 0;
screen = 0;
unsafe = false;
fullscreen = false;
multi-threaded = false;
password = ā€œā€;
frame-rate = 23;
downscale = false;

Following Sandbirds advice

70

yeah, sorry for late postā€¦you should do an apt-get update first to make sure everything is updated first on your pi.
Try tweaking the frame-rate value. I wouldnt go too high, 23-25 is enough to get a smooth interaction.

71

i just installed this and it worked :smile:
thanks alot dude!
now what kind of encoding is best to pick in my vnc viewer?
thanks

72

Hey again. apt-get update was recent, that wasnā€™t the problem. Aptitude actually had to downgrade one package in order for it to fulfill dependencies.

Re. framerate I tried 15 and 30 as values and the performance hardly changed.

73

@lucianus_luciferus , what do you mean when you say encoding ? My vnc viewer doesnt have that. If you mean colours, then 256 is the max you can goā€¦it cant handle higher.

@andimq, When i switched to 23 frames, in my setup it was much better than the default oneā€¦higher than that had almost no effect. You probably installed something else before and you had problems with that specific package.
Dont expect it to work like vnc in windows doesā€¦This is a custom built driver for the pi and i guess its not optimized that well. Compared to the other vnc servers out there though (tightvnc and other vncserver apps) its the best iā€™ve seen so far, regarding the frames and cpu consumption.

74

i am using the free ultravnc viewer and it has loads of encoding options. i have tried 2 of them but only one worked. thats why i wanted to ask what encoding is the vncserver using so i can use the same in the vnc viewer hoping that would improve the quality and speed.
thanks @Sandbird

75

@lucianus_luciferus , yeahā€¦i highly doubt encodings would work with thisā€¦ That means extra cpu consumption for the pi (encoding, decoding etc)ā€¦and i dont think anyone would want that. We should be happy thats itā€™s even working :stuck_out_tongue:

76

Well I doubt that it would work without any encoding :smile:
If you check the screen output it actually says which enconding is being used. If you scroll up to one of the earlier posts in here you see it using tightenconding

77

yeah, i meant, a different oneā€¦i know it uses something now.

78

donā€™t get me wrong i am happy it works. i just wanted to make sure i am using the right settings.
edit: just noticed something strange. my pi is connected via hdmi to my tv. so i connect to the pi from my pc via vnc, do a few things then disconnect. now after i disconnect i notice my tv does not display the pi anymore. it says no signal. the only way to make it display again is to reboot the pi via sshā€¦ wierd huh

79

You could try to disable CEC on the pi (system,system,input devices,peripherals,cec adapter) and see if it happens again. If it doesnt, then probably a post at the Help/Support thread of the problem would be the best thing for you, cause i have no idea why this is happening :confused:

80

Iā€™ve installed dispman_vncserver using this guide and am running OSMC headless on a RasPi2. How does one make the viewer window larger? I want to use more of the iMac screen. At the moment, it comes up too small to read the text easily.