gfunkdave's questions

I've been running the built-in Vino VNC in Ubuntu 20.04 on a headless server for a while now and it works fine. The box does not have a monitor plugged in (and never has). Now, when I VNC into it I just get a black screen. If I close the VNC client and try to reconnect, I can't reconnect - it just times out/hangs.

I think this started when I unplugged the keyboard and mouse to use somewhere else and rebooted the server, but I'm not sure. Can anyone suggest what might be going on? I just want to be able to remote control using the console like I used to - not having to create new VNC sessions or anything.

I've tried killing the vino-server process and restarting it, but it doesn't help. I've also tried uncommenting the first two lines in the stock xstartup file but that doesn't seem to do anything either.

david@dalton:~$ more .vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
# unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
x-window-manager &

I have an old Mac formatted 1.44 MB floppy disk that I want to read in Ubuntu 18.04. When I tried to read it under Windows with the MacDisk app it says that the Mac volume header can't be found. I'm assuming the disk is just old and corrupt.

I was thinking it would make sense to use dd to get an image of the disk that I could then try to analyze somehow. Is dd the best way to do this or is there some other method that will make for a more easily analyzed image?

I have a headless Ubuntu PC running 18.04.1 Desktop. If I plug a monitor into it, Vino starts automatically and I can VNC into the box. I did set the "Sharing" item in the control panel to share the screen.

I followed the instructions at How to use Ubuntu 18.04 on VNC without display attached? to install the dummy monitor.

If I ssh into the box and manually start Vino with

/usr/lib/vino/vino-server --display=:0

then it works fine and I can VNC. How can I make it work without needing to do this?