Where is desktop sharing?

[woodsman]

I am using LMDE, fully updated.

I want to use desktop sharing. The vino package aand dependencies are installed. Throughout the web I read references to vino-preferences. Yet no such file exists and looking at the package contents at the Debian web site indicates the file is no longer part of the package.

Thus I have no idea how a user is supposed to allow connections using vino.

When I manually run vino-server I receive the following error:

"The desktop sharing service is not enabled, so it should not be run."

I looked through the init scripts and services and do not find anything obvious. I do not know what 'desktop sharing service' is not enabled.

I installed x11vnc server and connected just fine. Yet x11vnc is ugly and crude looking. I prefer an app or dialogs that match the desktop environment.

Is vino broken or am I missing something obvious?

Thanks.

[AlanWalker]

I am using LMDE, fully updated.

I want to use desktop sharing. The vino package aand dependencies are installed. Throughout the web I read references to vino-preferences. Yet no such file exists and looking at the package contents at the Debian web site indicates the file is no longer part of the package.

Thus I have no idea how to a user is supposed to allow connections using vino.

When I manually run vino-server I receive the following error:

"The desktop sharing service is not enabled, so it should not be run."

I looked through the init scripts and services and do not find anything obvious. I do not know what 'desktop sharing service' is not enabled.

I installed x11vnc server and connected just fine. Yet x11vnc is ugly and crude looking. I prefer an app or dialogs that match the desktop environment.

Is vino broken or am I missing something obvious?

Thanks.

Does the second reply in this thread help?

[altair4]

I no longer support LMDE but there is a Debian bug report that matches your symptoms: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=729468

If you don't speak Spanish here is a translation:

Hello,

siguendo you indicate the link:

https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings/Sharing

the end is the mystery:

http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-user-share

# Sudo apt-get install gnome-user-share

After installing the package the option "Screen Sharing" it adds in
"Share" in "gnome-control-center"

And that's all

After gnome-user-share is installed you should be able to go to Menu > Preferences > Sharing and see something that resembles what vino-preferences looked like:

gnome-user-share.png

That package also installs a whole mess of other stuff you might never use and seems to violate the prime directive of UNIX which back in the before time was "Do one thing and do it well" but .....

[woodsman]

Thank you both for replying. I fiddled with this only for about 20 minutes. My observations and thoughts:

* There no longer is a graphical interface to configure desktop sharing. The vino-preferences tool no longer exists. I suspect the reason is the vino developers now expect upstream gnome packages to provide the respective dialogs. This decision affects all Mint users using a GTK based desktop.

* The gnome-user-share package did not provide me the missing graphical interface. I checked everywhere in the menus, in both Cinnamon and Mate, checked the respective control centers. I don't know why the Sharing dialog is not readily available anywhere.

* Installing gnome-user-share created three instances of "Personal File Sharing" in the Cinnamon Startup Applications.

* Using dconf or gsettings does indeed enable desktop sharing to avoid the vino-server error I reported. A different message now appears.

* I haven't yet been able to actually connect but I will pursue this later.

* Even if I got the package to work, rather than installing gnome-user-share I suspect a well-written python script would suffice to replace the now missing vino-preferences dialog. Since Cinnamon now no longer is fully dependent upon gnome, nor Mate or Xfce, looks like a Mint-specific solution is needed.

* The Debian bug report was closed but the original problem is not truly resolved. The problem is a missing dialog. That the problem can be worked around with gsettings does not fix the now missing dialog.

In short, the Mint dev team needs to know that there is no graphical interface to support desktop sharing. Something is needed to replace the now missing vino-preferences dialog. This affects all Mint gtk desktop users. The vino-preferences dialog is the method that provided users the direct one-click toggling of the dconf setting to enable/disable desktop sharing.

The problem now is not that dconf or gsettings can't be used, which experienced users can overcome, but that there is no direct graphical interface to do this. Thus for a majority of Mint users, sharing the desktop is broken.

[altair4]

Thus for a majority of Mint users, sharing the desktop is broken.

I will defer to your expertise on LMDE specifically but the "majority" of Mint users may not be affected.

This is what vino-prefernces looks like in Mint16 Cinnamon:

Vino-Mint16-Cin.png

And this is what it looks like in Xubuntu 14.04:

Vino-Xubuntu-1404.png

I don't have Mint17 installed yet to know if it deviates from the same Ubuntu base that Xubuntu does but it may not impact that either.

It would appear to be only a Debian thing or maybe an LMDE thing.

[darethehair]

Not the easy solution that you (or I) was looking for, but 'x11vnc' was what I ended up doing (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 0&t=161803).

[woodsman]

It would appear to be only a Debian thing or maybe an LMDE thing.

Perhaps. Out of curiosity, what version of vino is LM16 using?

LMDE is using 3.10.1. Debian Testing is using 3.12.1, which also does not contain vino-preferences.

but 'x11vnc' was what I ended up doing

Yup, I mentioned that in my original post. Functional, but butt ugly and does not fit the Mint desktop environments.

[altair4]

I'll give you the level of both packages.

Mint16:
vino = 3.6.2
gnome-user-share = 3.0.4

Xubuntu 14.04:
vino = 3.8.1
gnome-user-share = 3.0.4
In Xubuntu gnome-user-share is available but not installed by default and I never added it.

I have both Mint16 and Xub14 installed on a test box in this part of the asylum and I can configure vino and access it the exact same way I have with past versions.

[kx32]

So has anyone actually got VINO to work with the latest version of LMDE mate and if so how. I have tried every post and still it doesn't run. Idiot guide would be nice

[woodsman]

In my previous post:

"Using dconf or gsettings does indeed enable desktop sharing to avoid the vino-server error I reported."

I don't have any notes, but I think the dconf setting is:

org.gnome.desktop.applications.remote-access.enabled

I have not pursued this further. There remains no graphical interface. I have no idea whether this is fixed in the main Mint versions.

[altair4]

I have not pursued this further. There remains no graphical interface. I have no idea whether this is fixed in the main Mint versions.

Now that I have Mint17 Cinnamon installed it follows Ubuntu and previous Ubuntu-based Mint releases as vino-preferences launches the desired GUI:

vino-preferences.png

At this point it appears to be an LMDE issue.

[om62]

OK, I managed to get Vino to work on LMDE201403.

vino-server is not enabled so we have to do that first:

Code: Select all

gsettings set org.gnome.Vino enabled true

Still, there is no easy way to configure vino, so we need to get dconf-Editor so we can configure it - install dconf-Editor with Synaptic.

Launch dconf-Editor and navigate to:

desktop.gnome.remote-access

Here you will be able apply the settings to vino like we used to see in previous versions when "vino-preferences" used to work. Password, encryption, notify on connection etc.

Finally, add

Code: Select all

 /usr/lib/vino/vino-server 

to the Start Up Applications and you are done for good!