NAME

       directvnc - a vnc client for the linux framebuffer device

SYNOPSIS

       directvnc server:display [options]

DESCRIPTION

       DirectVNC  is a client implementing the remote framebuffer protocol (rfb) which is used by
       VNC servers. If a VNC server is running on a machine you can  connect  to  it  using  this
       client  and  have  the  contents  of  its display shown on your screen. Keyboard and mouse
       events are sent to the server, so you can basically control a VNC server  remotely.  There
       are servers (and other clients) freely available for all operating systems.

       What  makes  DirectVNC  different  from  other  unix vnc clients is that it uses the linux
       framebuffer device through the DirectFB library which enables it to run on  anything  that
       has  a  framebuffer  without  the  need  for  a  running X server.  This includes embedded
       devices.  DirectFB even uses acceleration features of certain graphics cards. Thus  a  lot
       of  configuration  can  be  done  by  creating  the  library  specific  configuration file
       /etc/directfbrc or the program-specific configuration file /etc/directfbrc.directvnc.  See
       directfbrc(5) or find out all about DirectFB here:

           www.directfb.org

       DirectVNC basically provides a very thin VNC client for unix framebuffer systems.

QUITTING

       Hitting <ctrl-q> exits the viewer.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
            display help output and exit

       -v, --version
            output version information and exit

       -p, --password
            password string to be passed to the server for authentication. Use this with care!

       -b, --bpp
            the  bits  per  pixel  to  be  used  by  the client. Currently only 16 and 24 bpp are
            available.

       -e --encodings
            DirectVNC supports several different compression methods to  encode  screen  updates;
            this  option  specifies  a  set  of them to use in order of preference. Encodings are
            specified separated with spaces, and must thus be enclosed in quotes if more than one
            is  specified.  Available  encodings,  in  default order for a remote connection, are
            "copyrect tight hextile zlib corre rre raw". For a  local  connection  (to  the  same
            machine),  the  default  order to try is "raw copyrect tight hextile zlib corre rre".
            Raw encoding is always assumed as a last option if no other encoding can be used  for
            some reason.

       -f --pollfrequency
            time  in  ms  to  wait  between  polls  for  screen  updates when no events are to be
            processed. This reduces cpu and network load. Default is 50 ms.

       -s, --shared (default)
            Don't disconnect already connected clients.

       -n, --noshared
            Disconnect already connected clients.

       -n, --nolocalcursor
            Disable local cursor tracking By default,  and  if  the  server  is  capable  of  the
            SoftCursor  encoding,  mouse  movements  do  not generate framebuffer updates and the
            cursor state is kept locally. This removes mouse pointer lag and lets the  connection
            appear faster.

       -c --compresslevel level
            Use  specified compression level (0..9) for "tight" and "zlib" encodings (only usable
            with servers capable of those encodings).  Level 1  uses  minimum  of  CPU  time  and
            achieves  weak  compression ratios, while level 9 offers best compression but is slow
            in terms of CPU time consumption on the server side. Use high levels with  very  slow
            network  connections,  and  low  levels  when  working over high-speed LANs. It's not
            recommended to use compression level 0, reasonable choices start from the level 1.

       -q --quality level
            Use the specified image quality level (0..9) for "tight" encoding (only  usable  with
            servers  capable  of those encodings).  Specifying this option allows "tight" encoder
            to use lossy JPEG compression.  Quality level 0 denotes bad image  quality  but  very
            impressive  compression ratios, while level 9 offers very good image quality at lower
            compression ratios. Note that "tight" encoder uses JPEG to encode only  those  screen
            areas  that  look  suitable for lossy compression, so quality level 0 does not always
            mean unacceptable image quality.

       -m --modmap PATH
            Path to the modmap (subset of X-style) file to load. With this option, it is possible
            to  set  an alternative keyboard layout, with ability to support non-latin characters
            such as Cyrillic. A plain text file, containing a subset of xmodmap(1)  syntax  (only
            keycode expressions are recognized with up to four KEYSYMNAMEs) can be converted into
            the format that directvnc understands, and can be loaded upon directvnc startup  with
            this option. See directvnc-kbmapping(7).

LIMITATIONS

       At  the  moment,  it  is still necessary to use the --bpp command line option to set color
       depth. When negotiating with the remote VNC server  side,  color  depth  supplied  by  the
       server will be used. It is therefore necessary to make sure (at least in the present) that
       screen color depth (default, or set in  the  DirectFB  configuration  file),  color  depth
       supplied at the command line, and remote VNC server color depth all match.

SEE ALSO

       directfbrc(5), directvnc-kbmapping(7), directvnc-xmapconv(1), xmodmap(1)

AUTHORS

       Till  Adam,  Dimitry  Golubovsky, Malte S. Stretz, Loris Boillet and others, based on AT&T
       and tightvnc VNC implementations.

                                           Mar 5, 2010                               directvnc(1)