[Fedora-xen] Gnome desktop in domU? (aka xorg and startx problems in domU)

[Raul Saura]

Denis,

You can not run X on a DomU as the guest has no video hardware available,
but you can do the following:

run "Xvnc :0" on DomU, this will start an X server that uses a pseudo-frame
buffer as video-hardware and serves that framebuffer via vnc protocol.
now run "gnome-session" on DomU to start the whole gnome desktop
infraestructure on the guest OS (as gdm will do)

Now, from dom0 that is the only one with a physical screen attached at,
launch vncviewer and connect to domU-ip-address:0, this will show the remote
virtual desktop.

hope this helps.

Raul.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Denis Forveille <denis.forveille at gmail.com>
To: fedora-xen at redhat.com
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:09:33 -0400
Subject: [Fedora-xen] Gnome desktop in domU? (aka xorg and startx problems
in domU)
I'm experimenting with xen on FC5 (as domU and dom0).

The idea is to have a machine running dom0 with 4 guests, one of the guest
would be my workstation/desktop (with gnome running), the others guests
would be application/file/utilities servers.

I would like to perform something like:
- logon to the domU via ssh, from dom0 for example (I also have tried it
with "xm console domU" from dom0, the result is the same)
- run "startx" : that should bring the standard logon screen
- after login, use the gnome desktop as from a standard standalone
workstation

But this does not work: startx does not start (first because the
xorg.confis not created. I've tried to run "X -configuration" to
create
xorg.conf, but  the command fails also to create the xorg.conf file)
BTW, on dom0 "startx" and the gnome desktop run perfectly

Q:
- Is it possible to configure X and run "startx" in a domU (I've read
somewhere on the net that this is not possible...). If so how to do it?
- What is the best way to get a full gnome desktop workstation that would
run in domU like a standalone workstation?

I've tried the "vnc" solution, it works great but have limitations (at least
for me). and would greatly prefer what I described previsoulsy:
(I don't know how to get the logon screen with vnc, the screen resolution
can not be easily choosen/changed,  the desktop to be somewhat "slower" than
the "local" desktop)

Thanks in advance for any advice or pointer.

(I'm not really a newbee with linux, but I'm far from an expert...)

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