Ubuntu Server remote desktop

Okay, so a power outage killed my FC6 server the other day... Not sure how, but I lost video output as soon as FC6 would finish it's normal boot operations. I'm sure I could have fixed that, but seeing as FC6 is a SLOW distro, I wanted to try Ubuntu.

So I downloaded the server x64 edition and installed it, got it all setup (except for the server part). I was using NX Machine to allow remote desktop interface when I had FC6 installed, but there is not a x64 version of NX. While I'll try to recompile it and install it, I don't have enough faith in my ability to get that to work.

So I wanted to know what some of you guys use for remote desktop? I want something where I don't have to have a session already running (I often never log in at the physical machine) and it needs to be able to pull up the Gnome desktop. Running X over SSH wasn't really what I've been looking for. Oh... and I need it to be able to continue the session after I close my remote desktop program.

Any other ideas? I love how windows has a great remote desktop environment... I would love to have something like that (which is basically what NX was)... anyone know of anything thats compiled for x64 that could suit my needs?

 

I use NX and run it on my x86_64 arch. You need to install some compatibility libraries. Sorry I don't recall which ones but look on the nomachine knowledge base.

http://www.nomachine.com/ar/view.php?ar_id=AR02C00154

There a a number of options to export your current X-session (or a new one if you prefer) using VNC. TightVNC, X11-vnc, etc. I don't use ubuntu, so you'd need to see what is supported by your distro. I've installed these on Debian and they are a snap to configure.

Then you just need a vncviewer client running remotely and you're good to go.

My preference is still for NX. You get security via SSH protocol, you can do SSL encryption on top of it, and it's really fast! By the way there is also freeNX (a free NX version) which dies not have as many features as the nomachine version, but still gets the job done if you're gung-ho about FOSS.

 

VNC in ubuntu also suggest you do it over SSH. Just forward VNC to SSH, that's it.