[How To] Set up Remote Desktop on Nokia N900 !

rdesktop is an open source client for Windows Terminal Services, capable of natively speaking Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in order to present the user's Windows desktop, if you can control your N900 from your computer and Vice Versa with VNC !, now you can access even windows desktops in traditional ways with rdesktop, use your n900 memory drives to transfer files between pc and phone etc.

So, how the Remote Desktop Mobile client on the N900 works with Windows 7 (or XP) in 3 easy steps?

1- Set up your computer to enable remote desktop access (you can look here for Win XP or if you use Win 7 just type "remote" in search field (click on windows start icon) and choose : "allow remote desktop...")

2- Download, install rdesktop and rdesktop-cli on your Nokia N900, (both are available in the Extras Devel repository) 

3- In "RDP server" you enter the IP address of your desktop PC, for username you use your Windows login and the password field and leave others as default configuration...

4- Connect --> Done !

Pretty nice eh?

[UPD] VNC Viewer 0.6.5 now with fullscreen

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a system which allows the user to view a 'desktop' environment from anywhere on the Internet. The VNC viewer provides a client that can connect to a VNC server.

In this release :

+ loudness button allows to toggle between fullscreen and normal screen.

So, now it is possible to turn off the toolbar in fullscreen and have real fullscreen !

Download it !

[How to] Control your N900 From Your Computer and Vice Versa With VNC !

In computing, Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a graphical desktop sharing system that uses the RFB protocol to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard and mouse events from one computer to another, relaying the graphical screen updates back in the other direction, over a network.

For that, if you want to view and control your pc/laptop from the N900, all you have to do is to :

1 - Get a vnc-server (the program on the machine that shares its screen. The server passively allows the client to take control of it.) like tightvnc (I'm using TightVNC Server. It works great!) or realvnc, install it on your laptop, set up a password, and add the tablet to the list of allowed hosts (plenty of documentation for that available on the net). 

2 - Then you fire up vncviewer (VNC client (or viewer) is the program that watches, controls, and interacts with the server. The client controls the server.) on the N900 (it's in extras-testing repository) and connect to :0 (For eg. 192.168.1.4:0) where

- 192.168.1.4 describes you laptop/pc ip address.

- ":0" describes the screen you want to connect to, under unix it's not uncommon to have several X Servers running, which would be adressed by :1, :2 and so on, but under windows there's usually only one, hence ":0".

You'll get a touchscreen user interface of your desktop, so you just click / drag etc on the screen...

For the other way round (controlling / viewing your N900's desktop from your laptop), it's basically the same :

- You just fire up x11vnc on the N900 (the default setting is without password, and to close after one session, so you have to start x11vnc every time you want to connect, unless you set it up to start automatically, but then you also want a password, and it gets a bit more involved). Then use vncviewer (tightvnc viewer for example works great for that) on your laptop to connect to :0 (you might have to add the IP address of your N900 followed by :0 by right clicking on tighvnc icon and select add client) et voilà!