Vino
Vino is a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) server allowing remote connection to your actual desktop. It is a default component of the GNOME Desktop environment.
Installation
GNOME
Install the package vino, which is available in the official repositories.
You need to restart GNOME so that vino-server
is started automatically when enabling the remote desktop feature. The remote desktop feature can usually be enabled in Settings > Sharing, however this only seems to be functional when NetworkManager is installed and functional.
Alternative Desktop Environments
As of version 3.9.2, Vino no longer includes a standalone preferences dialog (see bug 700070), thus making configuration difficult without the GNOME Control Center.
The easiest solution is to install vino38AUR from the AUR, which provides the latest version with the preferences dialog, accessible via the vino-preferences
command.
Configuration
You can configure vino via gnome-control-center.
Now you can connect remotely to your desktop via a VNC viewer like TightVNC or Remmina. Remember to forward port 5900 if you are behind a NAT device and to allow the connection through iptables.
If you are having problems regarding security and encryption you could try:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false
If you use a standalone window manager like Openbox and it does not work, you can start vino-server
manually or add the command to the window manager's autostart script
# /usr/lib/vino/vino-server &