VNC

As of Oct 2016 RealVNC is included as part of the default setup for with Noob, I would recommend you use the  included RealVNC rather than tightvncserver as it seems to support more things.

That said if you run it without a monitor connected you will need to do the following to avoid being stuck with a very small view screen.

First make a back-up of your config.sys just in case..

sudo cp /boot/config.txt /boot/config.txt.bak
sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Then modify these lines:

...
# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output
hdmi_force_hotplug=1

# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=16
...

The new resolution will be 1024×768, it is not a huge screen but big enough.

Thanks to lmarmisa for these instructions posted on Rpi forum

Tight VNC server s/w

To install tightvnc on a RPi  [ setting up as a server ]

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

Do make sure you download your VNC s/w from a trusted source

The command line you need to start VNC server on Pi is shown below – note this is a quite basic setting, you can add a number of other extensions to match remote desktop to your screen size / requirements.

vncserver :1  -depth 24

You can do this remotely using ssh and putty if you are running ‘headless’. When you run vncserver for the first time it will ask you for a password. If will optionally ask you for second read only password, you are unlikely to need this.

Step by step instructions –

http://myraspberrypiexperience.blogspot ... p-vnc.html

Instructions for setting vnc to run at start up

– note this only works if rpi configured to  go direct to the GUI on power up

http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-raspberry-pi-lesson-7-remote-control-with-vnc/running-vncserver-at-startup

Also check out the link below for auto starting using init.d [this is a better way to do it ]

http://elinux.org/RPi_VNC_Server

Viewer S/W

There are a number of PC applications which work with tightvncserver, I have used

  • UltraVNC.
  • Real VNC Viewer

I tend to opt for Real VNC as it is easier to install direct from OEM site

http://www.realvnc.com/download/viewer/
http://www.uvnc.com/

Do make sure you download your VNC s/w from a trusted source

You can also download Real VNC viewer to run on Pi and iOS etc

for Pi installation

sudo apt-get install vncviewer

remember when connecting to server you need to enter the IP address followed by :1 – for instance 192.168.1.160:1