Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
VNC
If you're already using a laptop or your favorite desktop computer, you can conveniently
access your Raspberry Pi's graphical desktop over the network. Once the Raspberry
Pi's VNC server is installed, all you need is a VNC client on your accessing computer.
Once this is available, you no longer need a keyboard, mouse, or HDMI display device
connected to the Raspberry Pi. Simply power up the Pi on your workbench, with a
network cable plugged into it.
You can easily install the VNC server software on the Pi at the cost of about 10.4
MB in the root file system. The command to initiate the download and installation is as
follows:
$ sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
After the software is installed, the only remaining step is to configure your access
to the desktop. The
vncserver
command starts up a server, after which you can connect
remotely to it.
Using SSH to log in on the Raspberry Pi, type the following command:
$ vncserver :1 -geometry 1024x740 -depth 16 -pixelformat rgb565
You will require a password to access your desktop.
Password:
Verify:
Would you like to enter a view-only password (y/n ) ? n
New 'X' desktop is rasp:1
Creating default startup script/home/pi/.vnc/xstartup Starting applications
specified in/home/pi/.vnc/xstartup
Log file is/home/pi/.vnc/rasp:1.log
$
The password prompts are presented only the first time that you start the VNC server.
Display Number
In the
vncserver
command just shown, the first argument identifies the display number.
Your normal Raspberry Pi X-Window desktop is on display
:0
. So when you start up
a VNC server, choose a new unique display number like
:1
. It doesn't have to be the
number 1. To a limited degree, you can run multiple VNC servers if you find that useful.
For example, you might choose to start another VNC server on
:2
with a different display
resolution.
