vnc4server doesn't support glx

[Tuomas]

Binary package hint: vnc4server

Vnc4server doesn't seem to support GLX extension, i.e. software openGL. I heard that it is a compile-time setting. Definitely it should be enabled.

[Basilio Kublik (sourcercito)]

Hi Tuomas
Could you please elaborate a little more on this, i don't really understand where are you going. Do you mean doesn't work well with desktop effects activated or what?.

Thanks in advance

[Tuomas (tuma+sec)]

Hi,

Desktop effects is one example, but simpler example is just ability to
run glxgears. Of course rendering is made on software but it is done,
anyhow. I saw, that on some redhat based machine at our university,
VNC is supporting GLX and software that uses openGL (like Comsol
Multiphysics) work well.

[Tuomas (tuma+sec)]

Hi,

Desktop effects is one example, but simpler example is just ability to run glxgears. I don't need desktop effects through vnc, and I don't know if they work if you have only GLX support.
Of course rendering is made on software but it is done, anyhow. I saw, that on some redhat based machine at our university, VNC is supporting GLX and software that uses openGL (like Comsol Multiphysics) work well.

[climatewarrior (gabrieljoel)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[kesterlester (cgl20)]

I briefly referted the status of this bug to New, intending to re-describe what Tuomas saw, motivated by the fact that today, in 2010, I am still being affected by the same problem. However, I realise that since I have just reverted to ubuntu 8.10 (from Koala) in an attempt to fix a different problem (python-visual is broken in koala, and my display driver is broken in jaunty) that I'm unlikely to be able to supply test information on a sufficiently recent system for any developer to care.

All Tuomas was saying, was that a vncserver, as it is an X server, must be able to do anything that an X server has to do. One of those things is to be able to deal with open GL requests, if it is to be able to run programs that use open GL. This is nothing to do with desktop effects. Turn them all off. Forget about them. Instead start a vncserver, eg;

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
vncserver -localhost :1

and then connect to the X server:

sudo apt-get install vncviewer (I may have misremembered the name of the vncclient package)
vncviewer :1 (oops, may have misremembered the name of this binary too)

and then within the viewer, launch glxgears.

Tuomas was pointing out that the last step above (glxgears) will FAIL, because the X server binary supplied with 8.10 (and possibly also later versions, I can no longer test them) was compiled without the option to support openGL.

[Tuomas (tuma+sec)]

According to a test I just committed, I can confirm that the problem still remains in 9.10 (Koala).

[Adam J Richardson (fatman-crackmonkey)]

My scenario is slightly more complicated than running glxgears, but I think I have the same basic problem.

I want to run a certain game client on my Jaunty server. I know the game runs well enough under Wine because I can run it on my Jaunty netbook, though you can imagine the FPS I get. (I only tried in the first place to test the concept.)

I've got as far as setting up resumable sessions using xinetd and vnc4viewer, and installed the game with some help from PlaysOnLinux. I'm now stuck because I'm getting unhandled page faults when I run the game executable through Wine or POL (which AFAICT is just a pretty front-end for Wine).

Here are the significant error messages (the rest is stack trace, which I can provide if required):
Xlib: extension "Generic Event Extension" missing on display "127.0.0.1:1.0".
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display "127.0.0.1:1.0".
wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 0x00000018 at address 0x7d949fb1 (thread 0009), starting debugger...
Unhandled exception: page fault on read access to 0x00000018 in 32-bit code (0x7d949fb1).

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD development release - Maverick Meerkat. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/. Thanks again and we appreciate your help.