Problems viewing OS X desktop from Linux

[Phil Endecott]

Dear Experts,

I've been trying to view a Mac desktop from Linux and I've encountered 
a number of annoying little problems.  I'd like to know whether any of 
these are due to the particular server and viewer combination that I'm 
using and could be cured by changing one or the other, or whether there 
are any work-arounds.

At the Linux end I'm using the Debian package of "VNC Viewer Free 
Edition 4.1.1 for X".
At the OS X end I'm using the Apple VNC server that's built in to OS X 10.5.5.

The issues are:

- There seems to be no clipboard sharing.

- When I move a window, it doesn't seem to do any copyrects; it redraws 
the whole window each time.

- I have to start vncviewer with --FullColour=on, else it terminates 
without showing the display.  I think this means it's using 32 bpp, 
even though I've configured the Mac to use "thousands of colours" (i.e. 
16 bpp) in its display settings dialog, so it is wasting half of its 
network bandwidth.

- I'm using a UK keyboard, and when I press # (i.e. the unshifted key 
to the left of return) I get a B# (pound sign).  I also get a B# (pound) 
when I press shift-3, so there seems to be no way to type a #.  (Now I 
think about it, I don't know for certain if the # key works on a 
directly-connected keyboard; I suppose I should check.  It did 
recognise the keyboard as a UK model when I installed it, but the 
machine doesn't have a keyboard plugged in at all while I'm VNCing to it.)

- I would like to be able to re-map the modifier keys.  Specifically, 
I'd like to be able to type Ctrl-Letter for things like copy, paste etc 
and for the Mac to see Cmd-Letter.  This is partly because I'm 
habituated to typing ctrl-C rather than cmd-C in GUI apps for copy, but 
also because my Linux window manager intercepts cmd, so the VNC viewer 
never sees it.  I also need to be able to send "option + click"; when 
Mac people say "option", do they mean the key with "cmd" written on it?

Many thanks for any suggestions.


Phil.