Ubuntu – Headless machine: Increase Remote Desktop resolution

remote accessremote desktopresolutionvnc

I have a headless Ubuntu machine that I connect to with a combination of ssh and vnc.

When I've got a monitor attached (which is rare), the vnc connection is the full resolution of the attached monitor (of course).
But, when I connect using vnc when there's no monitor connected, I get a much lower-resolution connection than I would like. It's as if the computer has a tiny monitor connected.

I have looked through Settings and haven't found anything promising (resolution was grayed out without a monitor connected).

How can I change the 'virtual resolution' that I get when I connect using VNC?

Update:

I'm not interested in recommendations for other vnc software now, I just want to know how to do the above with the built-in vnc server.
Thanks.

Best Answer

Have you considered to try an NX technology?, like FreeNX or NXnoMachine ?, it can be more friendly and configurable

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to graphically interface with a headless server

Yes, X forwarding over ssh is a beautiful thing indeed. It allows you to use graphical applications on an app by app basis and have windows handled by your own desktop environment. You do not even need a desktop environment installed on the server.

You do need to set up some authentication things for it to work though. I believe you need xauth for that.

It's SO much faster than VNC as well. VNC was always rather laggy in my experience.

Edit: I have no experience using this method via Windows, but I found this tutorial for you if you're interested.

Ubuntu – Set desktop resolution for standard 11.10 VNC server

Figured it out myself, finally.

Apparently the problem was that since there is no monitor, no valid "screens" are started up when the box boots, and therefore no resolutions are available in the Unity settings dialog.

However, when no screens are found, it seems the system defaults to a "virtual desktop", with a 640x480 resolution. The system does support virtual desktops that have different resolutions than the connected monitors (in this case none), so the trick was to change the default virtual desktop resolution. That can be done in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

My file currently looks like this.

Section "Device"
       Identifier      "Default Device"
       Option  "NoLogo"        "True"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier    "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier    "Default Screen"
   Monitor        "Configured Monitor"
   Device        "Default Device"
   SubSection "Display"
       Depth    24
       Virtual 1280 800
   EndSubSection
EndSection

This seems to suffice, and you can change the "Virtual 1280 800" section to whatever you want. And the reboot the box. I am using the built-in vino VNC server.

Update:

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to graphically interface with a headless server

Ubuntu – Set desktop resolution for standard 11.10 VNC server

Related Question