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Ubuntu Headless x11vnc VESA 800×600 Resolution Issue Fix

I recently built a sweet rig, that is mounted in a IKEA frame and displayed on the wall to replace my old ubuntu Shuttle media center. Utilizing Wireless HDMI, having the box physically near the TV is pointless. Not to mention that every room of my house now has a Boxee Box in it and I highly recommend them. But alas I’ve digressed far enough.

The point of the rig is to be headless, while still maintaining a full GUI interface for remote access. I set everything up using my favorite VNC server, (x11vnc, if you love it as much as I do send the developer a beer via his Paypal) since Vino crashes way to frequently to be considered vaguely reliable.

Setting up x11vnc was simple. I simply had to create a password file, then reference that file when starting the daemon and your set.

My first attempt to get this to run successfully was to create an upstart job. This didn’t exactly work out the way I had wanted specifically, as well as the thought of running the daemon as root freaked my conscious out. So I decided to set GDM to automatically login to my user, then create a startup application that ran the daemon as my own user.

This produced a much better and more reliable setup. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE Ubuntu’s upstart and think it is the future of init. I’m just not familiar enough with it to spend enough time tonight tinkering with it to get that ever so sweet perfection I always crave.

So finally I had a working x11vnc setup. I connected, it prompted me for my password, and GREAT SUCCESS I was in! The joy quickly faded as I realized the resolution was set at 800×600 and attempting to change it resulted in more anger as that was the maximum resolution available.

Ok, so the only solution was the ask the great oracle AKA Google. Sifting through pages and pages of blog posts. People have had the same issue and have recommended countless times to specify a vesa monitor in your Xorg config. So I loaded it up and rebooted. Logged back into VNC and…

… it didn’t work.

After pulling my hair out modifying that Xorg config with various resolutions changes. I read further that how since either Ubuntu 9 or Ubuntu 10, they changed the way monitors are detected, and having a vesa driver is pretty much equal to having a failsafe driver. (So I installed the driver. Then modified the previous solution. I rebooted and logged into VNC to see MANY resolutions. GREAT SUCCESS!

Create x11vnc Password File

1	mkdir ~/.vnc && x11vnc -storepasswd replacethiswithyourpassword ~/.vnc/passwd

Upstart Job: /etc/init/x11vnc.conf

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# Author Andy Hawkins   start on login-session-start # emitted by GDM exec /usr/bin/x11vnc -ncache 10 -o /var/log/x11vnc.log -forever -rfbauth /root/.vnc/passwd -auth guess -display :0

Startup Applications Preferences

Startup Applications Preferences

Startup Application Command:

1	/usr/bin/x11vnc -o ~/.vnc/x11vnc.log -forever -rfbauth ~/.vnc/passwd -auth guess -display :0 -bg -shared -noxdamage -xrandr “resize”

Vesa Driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf

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Section “Device”     Identifier  “Configured Video Device”     Driver      “vesa” EndSection Section “Monitor”     Identifier  “Configured Monitor”     HorizSync 31.5-48.5     VertRefresh 50-70 EndSection Section “Screen”     Identifier  “Default Screen”     Monitor     “Configured Monitor”     Device      “Configured Video Device”     DefaultDepth 24     SubSection “Display”     Depth 24     Modes “1024×800″     EndSubSection EndSection

TL;DR Solution: Install xserver-xorg-video-dummy

1	sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-dummy

TL;DR Solution: Dummy Driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf

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Section “Device”     Identifier  “Configured Video Device”     Driver      “dummy” EndSection Section “Monitor”     Identifier  “Configured Monitor”     HorizSync 31.5-48.5     VertRefresh 50-70 EndSection Section “Screen”     Identifier  “Default Screen”     Monitor     “Configured Monitor”     Device      “Configured Video Device”     DefaultDepth 24     SubSection “Display”     Depth 24     Modes “1024×800″     EndSubSection EndSection

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Andy Hawkins Scripts, Tutorial 800×600, driver, dummy, fix, GDM, headless, resolution, ubuntu, upstart, vesa, vino, VNC, x11vnc, xorg, xvncserver

Photographer Lisa Bettany has an interesting post over at Camera+ comparing the iPhone 4S camera to the cameras on each of the previous versions (and a couple other cameras as well). It’s an interesting look at how much cell phone cameras have improved since the original iPhone was announced at the beginning of 2007.

How does the iPhone 4S camera stack-up against other cameras? (via Foto Actualidad)

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