VNC based connectivity is one of the most usefull things I know close to ssh connections. This is a simple example on how to use VNC for presentations purposes on linux platforms.

Full screen presentations

This assumes you wish to share you entire screen for your presentation.

  • install the required packages
apt-get install tightvncserver x11vnc xtightvncviewer
  • start the vnc server on your station
x11vnc
  • or start with some options I use frequently. This will scale the screen to limit bandwidth, don’t exit when the client closes and set a view password to allow view only clients
x11vnc -scale 2/3 -forever -passwd xxx -viewpasswd yyy

Everything is set now, just instruct your client to connect to your IP using the freely available tightvnc clients. Some configuration might be required on your side. One configuration I usually do is to use the port 80 to simplify connection for the client.

Separate screen presentations

This assumes you wish to have a separate window, including a full desktop separate from you own in order to separate your presentation from other work you might do in background

  • install the required packages
apt-get install tightvncserver x11vnc xtightvncviewer
  • start the vnc server on your station using depth of 16 bits and a smaller geometry
tightvncserver -depth 16 -geometry 1024x768
  • set the full access and view only password
  • connect to the local server in full access and instruct the client to connect using the view only password
vncviewer -localhost:0
  • one observation, you can configure your desktop for the vnc window in the .vnc/xstartup file

Client connection

There are a few things you should know in order to tell the client how to connect to your vnc. First you should know you external IP and the port on which your vnc server is forwarded. Second you should know that the vnc server address is presented to the client in the following format:

  • {IP}:{DISPLAY} display is from X11 terminology. 1 means port 5901 and 0 port 5900.
  • {IP}::{PORT}

A more complex example using reverse vnc can be found here.