TightVNC

TightVNC is the tool I reach for when I need remote control inside a client's own LAN and do not want a heavy agent installed. The server install is small, the viewer connects in seconds, and the Tight encoding keeps a session usable even on a slow shop connection where a full-color session would lag. Two practical notes from using it: set a strong control password during setup and never expose the port directly to the internet - I only use it behind a VPN or on the local network - and the view-only option is handy when walking a user through a fix without taking over their mouse. Dated interface, but it does one job reliably.

I installed TightVNC server on Raspberrypi4 headless because a) RealVNC server has to be paid for! (morons) and b) I found a TightVNC install instructions. This is great except that TightVNC viewer does not work on a Mac! I loathe just to run a damn VM with Windows 10 just to use a TightVNC session. Does anyone actually make a VNC type desktop access program that is easy to install on a Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB) running Raspbian AND the viewer/controller works on a Mac OSX Catalina?

Relatively speaking, this is the best remote desktop tool I've found so far! I just wanted something to remote into my linux fedora machine in our room upstairs from my downstairs windows machine (wife sleeps later than I do). I tried teamviewer and it worked fine for a couple of months, then I couldn't connect. I read some reviews that had me worried they might try to accuse me of using their software for commercial purposes (nope), but at the very least I wasn't so sure if I wanted them to monitor me so closely. I then tried google remote desktop. Every few minutes I had to run up to my fedora machine and let google know I didn't want to get kicked off. Booted that. There have been a couple of minor annoyances with tightvnc. I had to disable encryption to get it to work, no biggie since there is only the two computers on my home network and I'm behind my router and a switch. Also I couldn't type some characters in from my windows machine - ex: ) and (. Again, easy enough to get by. I would just run upstairs and type in what I wanted,then copy the characters and paste them if I needed to use them again.

This is the best open source VNC software that I have seen for Windows. The source code is very cleanly written and it compiles without problems on Visual Studio.

I hit an ugly corner case with Xvfb (via xvfb-run) which was causing some mission critical software of mine to core dump (due to a nasty XServer I/O error, which I didn't feel like tracing). Note, I'm not an expert on X internals. But, no worries... TightVNC to the rescue! Great job guys, thanks 1e6!