I run a very minimalist desktop (LXDE) which doesn’t have the facilities to allow for shared desktop. I did use xrdp, it works but requires you to be logged off from the desktop and doesn’t allow sharing. I did a bit of research and found a great solution that uses SSH and (should) works on any linux desktop no matter the window manager.
Note: You will need to have SSH setup on both machines. It’s a bit much to cover setting up a server etc…
On the machine you are connecting to, you’ll need x11vnc
apt-get install x11vnc
On the remote machine you’ll need gvncviewer. Yes there are a BUNCH of VNC viewers out there but this one has scaling capabilities (enable View/Scaled Display). This comes in very handy when the client’s screen is smaller than the host!
apt-get install gvncviewer
The process is pretty straight forward. ssh into the host using the LOGGED IN USER account (very important). Next run this simple command:
ssh [user]@[hostname] 'x11vnc -display :0'
Note this will open TCP port 5900 (VNC Server) on the host machine for EVERYONE, hence unsecure.
From the client PC run your viewer
gvncviewer [hostname]
x11vnc will imediately stop once the gncviewer has disconnected.
Same process as above but using the following SSH command to start x11vnc. This will force x11vnc to only listen on localhost AND SSH will port forward 5900 on your remote machine to localhost:5900.
ssh -t -L 5900:localhost:5900 [user]@[hostname] 'x11vnc -localhost -display :0'
Now from the client PC run your viewer over the forwarded port
gvncviewer localhost
Note gncviewer defaults to 5900 for it’s port.
| Created: 2026-09-01 | Modified: 2026-09-01 |