Help - Remote desktop (Vino) problem with two monitors

[Imaginenz]

Fedora core 5 - I had been using 'Remote Desktop' (Vino) to remotely view my desktop, as seen on the computer screen. I think this is known as viewing X display :0 (zero). It worked fine until I put in a new Nvidia 6200 AGP card and set up another monitor. Both monitors are coming off this new video card, one off the VGA port and the other off the DVI port. Running livna 87.62 nvidia drivers. Set up xorg.conf as:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Multihead layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" RightOf "Screen1"
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "Xinerama" "on"
Option "Clone" "off"
EndSection

Set up for 1280x960 on each monitor. This works fine on the monitors.

However, when running 'VNC viewer' on the computer and connecting back to itself, or running RealVNC viewer on another windows computer, I would expect that the viewer would show the combined desktop of 2560x960 to scroll around on within the viewer. I do, in fact, get a viewer size of about these proportions, but the left side of the viewer shows the left screen (with some block artifacts) and the right side of the viewer is black. The viewer also seems to stall and respond only slowly.

Starting a new VNC session is not an option as I want to remotely view the applications currently running on my computer monitors.

Is this a Vino server problem?? A viewer problem?? Does Vino support two screens in Xinerama mode??

Can anyone else replicate this problem? Any info would be good. Thanks.

[Firewing1]

I think it's both. The such servers have a configuration for size - Yours is probably buggy because of the two screens. I'd try to set a manual resolution...
It could also be a client problem, where maybe Vino is sending both screens but the viewer can't handle it. I'm not sure. Either way, setting a manual resolution in the client would work, too.
As for the slowness, that's normal. With a HUGE screen like that, it's a lot for VNC/Vino to keep updated. Try running at lower colors or a smaller resolution. Over here I'm on a 10/100 LAN and running 1024x768 res. at 24bit color VNC works pretty well.
Firewing1

[Imaginenz]

The mouse stalling I'm talking about is really really slow, like some sort of bug slow.

However, I have found a bug report filed that seems to describe what I'm talking about:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla....cgi?id=164922

It would appear to be a problem with vino 2.8 in FC3 and xinerama, and appear to be still a problem as of vino in FC5. The bug is still classified as NEW so I presume it will be dealt with some time.

Ideally, in the future, vino using freenx would be really, really good....

[Firewing1]

Start a new one for FC5. There's a HUGE difference b/t FC3 and 5, so even though the problem is the same the cause could be entirely different
Firewing1

[Hillbilly]

Ok, did anyone ever figure out how to do this. I am having the same problem. I remote in to the FC7 desktop running remote desktop and I get the screen to the left of my main screen. I can pan to the side but it is just black. When I look at my FC7 desktop the mouse stays jailed on my main screen to the right. Can vino not support xinerama? What do I need to do to be able to run dual monitors and remote in to my desktop remotely using vnc?

[Imaginenz]

I am running two monitors under FC7 and using vino as as the vnc server to view them from another computer using a VNC viewer client. It appears that vino does not support xinerama, and as such, will not display multiple screens. That sucks... However, I have a Nvidia video card (6200) and am using the proprietary nvidia drivers from livna, I have configured xorg.conf to run the two monitors using Twinview mode. This seems to be a low level nvidia function which can take a single desktop (as it appears to all applications) and split it over two monitors. Therefore vino sees only one desktop to serve and does so fine. Obviously only for nvidia cards and nvidia proprietary drivers, but there may be other solutions out there.

Vino does not work with Compiz/Beryl etc. Something like VirtualGL would be needed. However, as an aside, twinview does allow compiz/beryl to work across two monitors seamlessly. Vino just stops working when Compiz or Beryl are turned on.

Relevant bits of my xorg.conf for comparison, using twinview mode. Note xinerama is switched off.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
# Xorg configuration created by livna-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"

# InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
Identifier "Multihead layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1"
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Option "Clone" "off"
EndSection

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
HorizSync 31.5 - 80.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 73.0
ModeLine "1280x960_70.00" 120.8 1280 1368 1504 1728 960 961 964 999 -hsync +vsync
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
HorizSync 31.5 - 80.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 73.0
ModeLine "1280x960_70.00" 120.8 1280 1368 1504 1728 960 961 964 999 -hsync +vsync
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "TwinView" "On"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x960_70.00,1280x960_70.00"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard Vendor"
BoardName "nVidia Corporation GeForce 6200"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x960_70.00" "1152x864_75.00" "1024x768_75.00" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x960_70.00" "1152x864_75.00" "1024x768_75.00" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection