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Starting X/GNOME automatically

A

agfkfhahddhdn

Senior member
I have an Ubuntu server in my closet that I normally just SSH to (I didn't install a GUI when I set it up). I heard about XDRP and decided it might be nice to have a UI on there just so I could RDP to it from my Windows PC and fool around. I installed ubuntu-desktop and gdm, but X was not running after the install, and I am aware that you can't run startx over SSH. But would it be possible to set X/gdm/etc to start automatically on boot and then just reboot the server?

Note: my server does not have a PS/2 port and my only keyboard is PS/2, hence why I can't just connect a monitor/keyboard and run startx locally. I'd like to be able to solve this without buying another keyboard as I don't otherwise own a desktop. Thanks!
 
Jodell88 said:
Code: 
sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm

Then reboot.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. When I run this it re-runs the same config window I got when I first installed gdm, where it just asks you to choose between gdm and lightdm. After a reboot I see this when I RDP to the box (the black X cursor is there but hidden by prtsc):

3pIw6dk.png


Is there something else I need to do?
 
zokudu said:
I tested this as well to see if I could figure out why it wasn't working. Maybe a bug?
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xrdp/+bug/1326273

Seems a workaround for right now is to run XFCE, which I can confirm works.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/449785/ubuntu-14-04-xrdp-grey
Click to expand...

So, I ripped out ubuntu-desktop (leaving gdm installed), installed xfce4 and xfce4-goodies, ran "sudo update-rc.d ldm defaults" to confirm lightdm was running at boot, rebooted, ran "sudo startxfce4" and it confirmed X was already running...then got the exact same screen. So I read your second link (should have done that initially) and it says I have to run "echo xfce4-session >~/.xsession" and then reboot the xdrp service, which I did, and now I instead get "error - problem connecting" when I try to log in through xrdp. That is apparently yet another known issue, this time caused by vnc4, which I removed (vnc4server and vnc4-common), uninstalled xrdp, installed tightvnc, re-installed xrdp (apparently has to be done this way), rebooted...same issue as originally.

I very much appreciate your help, and I'd still like to get this thing to work, but why would someone distribute a package if it only theoretically works with the most popular distribution? I'd rather be under the impression that there is no way to RDP into Ubuntu than be dicked around like this.
 
Why did you pull out ubuntu-desktop and more importantly how.

I still have the VM I used to test this before so I'll try recreating your issue again. I just left the ubuntu-desktop package and it worked fine so I'm guessing there's something in there needed for this but apt will not remove the ubuntu-desktop package.

So my best guess is you found a script or something to nuke it and it botched something up? Only idea I could have right now because my ubuntu-desktop install had a TON of packagers being pulled in.

Also I don't think your DM really has any influence on here. I'm pretty sure when you RDP in via xrdp is just runs startx for you which is why you need to append xfce4-session to your ~/.xsession. That file tells X what command to execute when you run startx.
 
zokudu said:
Why did you pull out ubuntu-desktop and more importantly how.

I still have the VM I used to test this before so I'll try recreating your issue again. I just left the ubuntu-desktop package and it worked fine so I'm guessing there's something in there needed for this but apt will not remove the ubuntu-desktop package.

So my best guess is you found a script or something to nuke it and it botched something up? Only idea I could have right now because my ubuntu-desktop install had a TON of packagers being pulled in.

Also I don't think your DM really has any influence on here. I'm pretty sure when you RDP in via xrdp is just runs startx for you which is why you need to append xfce4-session to your ~/.xsession. That file tells X what command to execute when you run startx.
Click to expand...

apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop works fine. It's Ubuntu Server and a GUI wasn't installed by default, I assume that's why you can remove it. I also had xubuntu-desktop installed and it still didn't work, and that should have any of the necessary packages.
 
I just ended up putting Windows 7 on the thing. It ended up being way too much work to try to accomplish seemingly simple tasks on Linux. I'm also planning on turning it into a Steam box, so Windows makes sense for maximum compatibility. Thanks, zokudu, for all your help.
 
I usually just set up a VNC server on my Linux boxes when I want to remote into them with a GUI.

Using RDP on a Linux box just seems somehow wrong to me 🙂
 
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