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)