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dataslanger

Member

Registered: 2019-08-23

Posts: 9  

A X neo-neophyte getting X running on Devuan 2.0...

First post here, hello everyone. Just wanted to extend my thank you to the developers for their work. I for one believe all systemd processes should be put down with extreme prejudice, and finding that a dedicated team took my favorite distribution and forked it out of the insanity is comforting. That being said I have been running Devuan as a production server in my datacenter on a few boxen for about eight months and have had a pretty positive experience. (Two questions were cross-posted on reddit/r/devuan, plz ignore any double answers if youre annoyed)

My new personal server is pretty beefy and I want to virtualize, but I am using Devuan as the base. (I use VMware on everything else usually) As a result I want a desktop environment instead of a bunch of tmux windows so I will have an easier time with VBox. I haven't setup an X server in a very long time (the last time I ran X on the desktop was circa 1998!), so - is it possible to setup a X environment easily on Devuan that will allow me to connect to the X server remotely?

GETTING TO THE QUESTION:
Preferably with an X client, but I hear things about stuff like NoMachine, XorgXrdp(?) and other VNC-like tech that implement individual desktops instead of one desktop that will be logged in if someone plugged in. I need security and peace of mind-- all access to the server is done over a IPSec VPN to the local network, and only my computer is allowed thru the firewall on the server itself, so an easier road to configuration would be nice.

To my end I installed a buttload of X packages (w/ 'cinnamon' as the WM), changed to allow any user to run X, added my user to tty group, etc. and still when I launch 'startx' I get an error about not being able to access "virtual console 7". IIRC tty7 was a dedicated X window display and that's not what I want necessarily. My desktop needs to preferably be virtual and as much non-root-level as possible (with X that's asking a lot still now a days I assume?).

Thanks in advance

d.s.

bgstack15

Member

Registered: 2018-02-04

Posts: 205  

Re: A X neo-neophyte getting X running on Devuan 2.0...

I have set up graphical terminal servers before, on Fedora. I use xrdp, which listens on 3389/tcp just like an obsolete non-free OS does. I will attempt to adapt my instructions from my blog (https://bgstack15.wordpress.com/2017/11 … fedora-26/) to Devuan, but I have not had the opportunity to test this yet.

Install xrdp and tigervnc server.

apt-get install xrdp tigervnc-standalone-server

Open firewall (I've actually not yet dealt with anything other than iptables on Devuan). And apparently all my clients have wide-open firewalls...
I will leave the firewall details to you, but open up tcp port 3389. Please note that xrdp will use a range of ports on the loopback device.

Make sure /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients does what you intend, that is, run start-cinnamonsession or equivalent. Mine was startxfce4.

Start services xrdp and xrdp-sesman. Sesman is the session manager that is presented when you first make an RDP connection to hostname:3389.
I was able to make a remote connection to my Fedora xfce4 terminal server with xfreerdp.

xfreerdp /sec-rdp /cert-tofu /size:1520x820 /bpp:16 /v:192.168.1.76 -z /disp /audio-mode:0 /wallpaper /themes /u:bgstack15

Probably not exactly what you wanted, but it was OK for me and maybe somebody can adapt it further to your needs.

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ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,251  

Re: A X neo-neophyte getting X running on Devuan 2.0...

Another alternative would be to run xvfb on the remote, which provides a headless X server, i.e., without displaying on any of the virtual consoles.

bgstack15

Member

Registered: 2018-02-04

Posts: 205  

Re: A X neo-neophyte getting X running on Devuan 2.0...

I have successfully tested my instructions on Devuan beowulf/ceres. I could connect immediately with the command above, but it wouldn't start any window manager upon logging in. It just gave me a bare X11 session with xterm (which is enough to type in fluxbox; I bounce around in DEs and WMs).
Upon a reboot, my session would successfully start fluxbox!

When I tried from another client, I was unable to log in, until I added parameter +glyph-cache.

HTH

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dataslanger

Member

Registered: 2019-08-23

Posts: 9  

Re: A X neo-neophyte getting X running on Devuan 2.0...

Thank you, going to give this a try. Will be back soon with deets .

ToxicExMachina

Member

Registered: 2019-03-11

Posts: 210  

Re: A X neo-neophyte getting X running on Devuan 2.0...

VNC is slow garbage. RDP (and 100% of its implementations) is slow and ultimately vulnerable garbage which is promoted by micro$oft fanboys. If you need to run some X11 apps without dedicated desktop just use X11 Forwarding over ssh (ssh -X). If you need full multiuser remote desktop with low latency: use X2Go. Xpra can also be a good solution.

Last edited by ToxicExMachina (2019-08-27 08:49:30)