Re: Access Ubuntu desktop from Mac

[Barry Duggan]

Hi Franco,

Thank you for giving a fast and detailed response!

I had found all of what you described, but it didn't work. I have 
subsequently loaded Ubuntu 20.10 and loaded RealVNC on the Mac. That 
works :)

Thank you for your help.

73,
Barry Duggan KV4FV
https://github.com/duggabe

On 2/8/21 8:34 PM, Franco VENTURI wrote:
> Hi Barry.
> as you probably already found out, the most common protocol used for screen 
> sharing is VNC; in your scenario the Mac (which initiates the connection) is 
> your VNC client, and the computer running Ubuntu (which is what you want to 
> control) is your VNC server.
>
> MacOS already has a VNC client called 'Screen Sharing'; however 'Screen 
> Sharing' expects an encrypted connection with some Apple proprietary encryption 
> that (as far as I know) is not available on Linux/Ubuntu.
>
> Ubuntu offers several VNC servers (see: 
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VNC/Servers); the default is called 'vino'. 
> Because of the incompatibility in the encryption algorithms I mentioned before, 
> I would suggest that for your first test you temporarily turn off mandatory 
> encryption in vino running this command on the Ubuntu box:
>
>                    gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false
>
> After that you should be able to use your Mac to connect to it by selecting 'Go > 
> Connect to Server' and then entering 'vnc://<Ubuntu box hostname or IP 
> address>:5900' - you can find these instructions in many places, for instance here: 
> https://www.zealfortechnology.com/2018/07/simple-screen-sharing-on-linux-ubuntu.html
>
> Once you confirm that this simple connection is working for you without 
> problems, we can look into how to make it secure using for instance an SSH 
> tunnel.
>
> Hope it helps,
> Franco - K4VZ
>
>
> > On 02/08/2021 6:02 PM Barry Duggan <barry@dcsmail.net> wrote:
> >
> >   
> > I have a Mac mini with MacOS Big Sur 11.0.1 and Ubuntu 20.04.2. I would
> > like to view and control my Ubuntu desktop from my Mac.
> >
> > I have tried lots of things described in various searches, but all have
> > failed. The screen sharing seemed to be the most straight-forward, but
> > fails to connect with no specific reason. Also I tried SSH tunneling.
> >
> > If anyone has specific instructions to make this work, I would be very
> > appreciative!
> >
> > Thanks!
> > --
> > Barry Duggan KV4FV
> > https://github.com/duggabe