VNC setup for LXQT Debian VM

Kind of complicated, but works. Proxmox uses NoVNC to connect to the primary user (in my case, pi=1000). I can start another Xsession at :1 but the desktop sharing doesn’t work well. pcmanfm-qt loads new windows in the :0 session instead of :1, and things aren’t well separated.

Easier to just create a new user and use TigerVNC.

sudo useradd -m vncuser

sudo groupadd vncuser

sudo passwd vncuser

sudo usermod -a -G vncuser vncuser

sudo apt install tigervnc-standalone-server tigervnc-common

sudo nano /etc/tigervnc/vncserver.users and add:

:1=vncuser

sudo nano /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-defaults and uncomment the following:

$localhost = "no";

Then copy all the lxqt settings files from your main user over to the vncuser user

sudo cp -r ~/.config /home/vncuser

sudo chown -R vncuser:vncuser /home/vncuser/.config

Then make the vnc session what you want:

sudo mkdir /home/vncuser/.vnc

sudo chown vncuser /home/vncuser/.vnc

sudo nano /home/vncuser/.vnc/config and enter the following. (Create the directory if it doesn’t exist)

session=lxqt
geometry=1024x768
alwaysshared

Then put a vnc password in.

sudo vncpasswd /home/vncuser/.vnc/passwd

Change permissions/owner of the passwd file.

sudo chown vncuser:vncuser /home/vncuser/.vnc/passwd

sudo chmod 600 /home/vncuser/.vnc/passwd

Then start a vnc session.

sudo systemctl start tigervncserver@:1.service

And enable it to start on startup.

sudo systemctl enable tigervncserver@:1.service