Ubuntu – Unable to install FreeNX Server on Ubuntu Trusty. Alternatives

14.04freenxremote desktopsoftware installation

Trying to install FreeNX-Server on Trusty is always failing with dependency on nxagent

***root@xxxxx-unix:/Downloads# dpkg -i freenx-server_0.7.3.zgit.140303.1848.e81c1e4-0~ppa2~trusty_i386.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package freenx-server.
(Reading database ... 169875 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack freenx-server_0.7.3.zgit.140303.1848.e81c1e4-0~ppa2~trusty_i386.deb ...
Unpacking freenx-server (0.7.3.zgit.140303.1848.e81c1e4-0~ppa2~trusty) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of freenx-server:
 freenx-server depends on nxagent (>= 2.1.0-0); however:
  Package nxagent is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing package freenx-server (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-16) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 freenx-server***

Best Answer

FreeNX is pretty old and unmaintained.

You should try X2GO which uses same NX technology (1, 2) and is actively maintained.

Server installation

You can find the detailed guide in the X2Go wiki, the essential commands in 14.04 are:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:x2go/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install x2goserver

Client software installation

You don't have to add the PPA, x2goclient is available since 12.04 from the repository.

Note that X2Go is still incompatible with desktops that rely on 3D acceleration.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to install 32-bit libraries when they keep having uninstallable dependencies

apt-get download overlay-scrollbar-gtk2
sudo dpkg --ignore-depends overlay-scrollbar -i overlay-scrollbar-gtk2*.deb

Simple.

This will work, if you've already installed package for your architecture. If not, you will get errors, while trying to use dpkg/apt-get next time. To fix them, run:

sudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/status

Find Package: [package name, overlay-scrollbar-gtk2 in this case], and remove ignored dependencies from Depends: (overlay-scrollbar in this case).

If you use gedit, make sure you've disabled automatic backups in Edit > Preferences > Editor before saving. Notice that gedit has seperate preferences for each user, and you're running it as root.

Ubuntu – thesql doesn’t ask for root password when installing

You can recover or set root password without knowing the current one by starting mysql without loading the grant-tables.

Please note the $ in the commands. This is specifying the terminal prompt you see when typing in the command. It's showing it's a line of text, but and actual typed terminal command. The "mysql>" prefix is also a prompt. That is the prompt you get when running mysql interactivately.

This is the cli (command line) to do this:
(Be sure to stop the current server before performing the steps. Only one server can run at a time.)

$ sudo mkdir /var/run/mysqld; sudo chown mysql /var/run/mysqld
$ sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables&

Now you can log in as root without a password and perform all commands, as in this case, set the root password as root.

$ sudo mysql --user=root mysql

This is the set root password that you will perform inside mysql if you have MySQL 5.6 or below:

mysql> update user set Password=PASSWORD('new-password') where user='root';
flush privileges;

In MySQL 5.7 or above

mysql> update user set authentication_string=PASSWORD('new-password') where user='root';
flush privileges;

From there, quit (kill the running msqld) mysql and start it as normal.

Notes on starting and stopping the mysql service:

Stop mysql:

$ sudo service mysql stop

Start mysql (normal):

$ sudo service mysql start

Kill the temporary mysql safe mode session:

$ sudo mysqladmin shutdown