Linux: setup x.org + vncserver + wine + utorrent

  10,911  views  

courtesy of Rassah.

THIS IS A GUIDE FOR DEBIAN BASED DISTS! Should work in other dists with a few edits though.

I will come by a little compiling with wine, since you get the newest version that way, and that is basically the hardest part, so you should be able to follow those steps even if you are a bit new to linux. Although I suppose you have a basic understanding about how your packetmanager works.

NOTE:

If you are experiencing utorrent crashing then look here:

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6996

You may need to downgrade wine for it to function properly for some reason unknown.

x.org, gnome/kde/xfce & vncserver

First thing we need to do is login as root and install the x server.

apt-get install xorg

Now we got the X.org GUI environment installed, this is basically enough, but why not install gnome tool. If you don’t know already know, there are several desktop environment packages out there, so you have to choose either Gnome, Xfce or KDE, you can install all three, but that would be waste of space. Use one of these:

Gnome: apt-get install gnome
KDE : apt-get install kde
Xfce(light) : apt-get install xfce4

This is probably the time you want to go grab a coke or two, because this takes some time to download.

So far so good, now we got the GUI environment + a nice desktop environment, if you would like to make some changes to the configuration of the x server, type this and follow the steps:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

or if you would like to do it the hard way:

vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Now we need to install the vnc-server:

apt-get install vncserver

And of course you will need a client too (google "vnc client") I would recommend tightVNC ->

— http://www.tightvnc.com/download.html

Remember to start the vncserver, and DO NOT START IT AS THE ROOT USER! So do a ctrl-d and logout!

vncserver -geometry 1024×768 -depth 16

- geometry speaks for itself, the size of the window in pixels (WxH)

- depth also speaks for itself, the color depth of the window, 16 would be fine, use 24 if you like to waste your b/w

for more details:

man vncserver

Now it asks for a password, which is the password you need to access your box, it has to be above 4 chars.

OK, if everything worked out fine, you should get this message (x represent your data(lowercase))

New ‘X’ desktop is xxxx:1
Starting applications specified in /etc/X11/Xsession
Log file is /xxxx/.vnc/xxxx:1.log

Now fire up your VNC client

type in your hostname/ip + :1 (assuming you started your desktop at 1)

ex. google.com:1

1.2.3.4:1

press enter, type in your password, done!

To kill the vncserver just type:

vncserver -kill :1

A good idea would be to make a script to easily start the vncserver when you need it:

so start by going to /bin

cd /bin

now start vim

vim startvnc

and copy past these lines:

#!/bin/sh

vncserver -geometry 1024×768 -depth 16

and remember to make it executable:

chmod +x startvnc

to start the vncserver just type startvnc in any place now, to start the vnc server

wine & utorrent

Now we need to get utorrent and wine set up. There are a few ways of doing this:

  • 1. get it with the packetmanager
  • 2. install external source with the packetmanager
  • 3. compile it yourself

if you know the latest version is already out, then just use your packetmanager, and skip this part.

apt-get install wine

If you cant access it with the packetmanager, or need a specific version, then download the external source from: http://www.winehq.org/site/download and install the *.deb with:

dpkg -i wine_0.9.*~winehq0~debian~4.0_*.deb

Last option is to install wine by building it directly from source:

For this you will need the following things:

  • -The c and c++ compiler
  • -make
  • -The bzip2 lib
  • -flex
  • -bison
  • -libgl1-mesa-dev
  • -ftgl-dev
  • -fontforge

So, start by logging in as root, and goto /usr/src (or your default build directory).

To get the stuff listed above:

apt-get install gcc g++ flex bison libgl1-mesa-dev ftgl-dev fontforge make bzip2

and untar it:

tar xf wine-*.tar.bz2

Now, goto the dir with the winesource:

cd wine-*

and run the configure script

./configure

Just to double check you got everything you need.

If no errors, OR WARNINGS!, proceed, else get the stuff listed.

make

Now we compile/build the stuff, this is gonna take a long time, so now is the time go watch some tv. Or actually READ about what you just installed: http://www.winehq.org/site/about

"Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop."

Then you would also know why wine is still in beta, and is updated so regularly.

make install

Now it moves all the binaries to the lib and path location, so you can access it easily with the command:

wine

To do a final configuration, run:

winecfg

If you would like to spare some space, you can remove the winefolder in /usr/src

Now we just need to download utorrent.

First logout, and return to your homedir, and wget utorrent.exe (replace version):

wget http://download.utorrent.com/1.7.7/utorrent.exe

start utorrent, say yes to make a shortcut on the desktop, if you want.

wine utorrent.exe

you can also just, as in windows, assign wine to all exe files by double clicking on them.

DONE!

READ THIS TOO

vnc is NOT secure, so this is just for starting stuff with wine, you should still use the terminal with the ssh encryption!

And remember to close vncserver if you do not use it. You can tunnel the connection to you vnc server with putty, but its pretty hard to do so, anyway look here if you wish to -> http://pigtail.net/LRP/vnc/