How To Set Up Clear Linux As Server; But Have GUI Remote Capablity

Q&A
1

How can you set up Clear Linux as server (multi-target access), but have remote access with VNC or some other approach that works?

I have installed the Latest Clear Linux Build in VMware as a server but would like to access the VMware host with VNC with a working GUI desktop. It’s not working the vnc session started is bombing out with a “oops” message or the vnc client shows a black screen".
When I start VMware in a multi-target screen I see an error message “piix4_smbus Host Controller not enabled!”

2

I was able to get a vnc session working that I could contact while the Clear Linux server
install was running in VMware Workstation 16.2.
The alias I created for starting the vnc server is:
alias vnc51=‘vncserver :51 -name $(hostname) -depth 32 -geometry 1905x1000’

Below is how I modified the stock xstartup script in the .vnc subdirectory.
gnome-session seem to fire up as expected.
xstartup script shown below
#!/bin/sh

unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
OS=uname -s
if [ $OS = ‘Linux’ ]; then
case “$WINDOWMANAGER” in
gnome)
if [ -e /etc/SuSE-release ]; then
PATH=$PATH:/opt/gnome/bin
export PATH
fi
;;
esac
fi
#if [ -x /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ]; then
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
#elif [ -x /usr/share/defaults/xinit/xinitrc ]; then
# exec /usr/share/defaults/xinit/xinitrc
#fi
#if [ -f /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ]; then
# exec sh /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
#elif [ -f /usr/share/defaults/xinit/xinitrc ]; then
# exec sh /usr/share/defaults/xinit/xinitrc
#fi

#if [ -x /usr/bin/startxfce4 ] ; then
# exec startxfce4
#fi
if [ -x /usr/sbin/gnome-session ] ; then
exec /usr/sbin/gnome-session
fi

#[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
#xsetroot -solid grey
#xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title “$VNCDESKTOP Desktop” &
#twm &

3

Do you know what you changed to get rid of the ‘Oops’ message?

4

I am not really sure I made some edits to the VMware configuration file: Clear_Linux-OS.vmx,
based on another posting here to add the following:

#For X11 issues:
mks.enableMTLRenderer = “0”
mks.enableGLRenderer = “1”
mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = “TRUE”
#For mouse grabbing/ungrabbing add these lines:
mouse.vusb.enable = “TRUE”
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = “FALSE
usb:0.present = “TRUE”
usb:0.deviceType = “hid”
usb:0.port = “0”
usb:0.parent = “-1”

And/or I was able to get the vnc xstartup modified to focus primarily on starting gonme-session.

To be clear the VMware Clear Linux Host does not come up with a login GUI, even though I set
“systemctl set-default graphical.target”. So this means editing anything in the VMware host environment involved using vi. So this means starting up the VMware host login, start the vnc server as root, then I was able to login to the Clear Linux gnome-session using a vnc client.
I really needed a GUI because I needed to use Wireshark which has an intense graphical user interface.
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