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I installed tightvncserver on one Linux machine and xtightvncviewer on another Linux machine.

I can connect from client computer to server computer without problems. There are two problems:

  1. The screens are different. On the client computer I can see on desktop all the files from my $HOME folder.
  2. I can't see on server computer what is being done from client computer. Cursor movements, opening files, everything.

I'm using Ubuntu 11.04 with Xmonad. Could the problems 1 and 2 be solved and tightVNC will work as teamviewer?

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I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Have a look at this, is (1) supposed to mean "seamless windows" and (2) "remote assistance"? If so, scrolling up tells you that TightVNC is not able to do (1) but should be able to do (2). – sr_ Apr 6 '12 at 16:38
point 1 means that on the server the desktop is empty because it shows files from $HOME/desktop but the client sees files from $HOME directory. This difference wouldn't be such problem, but I'd like to see what actions the other person is doing on my computer (problem 2) – xralf Apr 6 '12 at 17:02

1 Answer

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tightvnc is designed to present an independent session. What you want is something like the vnc server extension for xorg which exports the running console X11 session via RFB. It is packaged for a number of Linux distributions (try the vnc4server package on Debian or Ubuntu).

The X11VNC package can also do it and is considerably more flexible, although it's also rather complex and initial setup can be bewildering; the website provides some canned recipes for common usages, though.

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I'm using tightVNC because it's multiplatform. – xralf Apr 11 '12 at 7:03
The VNC protocol is substantially compatible (in particular everyone has picked up the "tight" extensions — and X11vnc is based on the tightvnc codebase, although libvnc is based on the realvnc codebase), so clients remain cross platform. Your server is Ubuntu, you said; it's that that would run X11vnc or libvnc. – geekosaur Apr 11 '12 at 7:08
OK, so it's sufficient to install vnc4server and tightVNC client from Windows platform will be able to connect to my Ubuntu machine? – xralf Apr 11 '12 at 7:20
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Should be, yes. Note that you really want some kind of security (VNC protocol itself has none); PuTTY on Windows can tunnel VNC, and the documentation for your client should describe how to do it (last time I checked the Windows TightVNC client docs did). – geekosaur Apr 11 '12 at 7:23

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