New raspberry pi os 12 coming out based on wayland... What about vnc server?

[steveiliop56]

Hello!

I recently saw the post about the all new raspberry pi 5 (which doesn't have the headphone jack ) and also saw about the new raspberry pi os 12 ditching x11 and dhcpcd for wayland and networkmanager. I have tried wayland through raspi-config but the vnc server disappears which means its probably not supported. So the question is will vnc server remain in raspberry pi os 12?

[aallan]

Hello!

I recently saw the post about the all new raspberry pi 5 (which doesn't have the headphone jack ) and also saw about the new raspberry pi os 12 ditching x11 and dhcpcd for wayland and networkmanager. I have tried wayland through raspi-config but the vnc server disappears which means its probably not supported. So the question is will vnc server remain in raspberry pi os 12?

Yup! Unfortunately, our existing RealVNC server doesn't support Wayland, so we're using WayVNC as the server on the upcoming Bookworm release. The WayVNC server running on your Pi can be connected to using the TigerVNC client, which has binary releases for Linux, Windows, and macOS.

[scruss]

Hmm, I'm going to have to find a way to replicate RealVNC's cloud connection, as sometimes the remote machine for me is in a different country

[rpiMike]

Hmm, I'm going to have to find a way to replicate RealVNC's cloud connection, as sometimes the remote machine for me is in a different country

Hmm, me too, been very useful.

[B.Goode]

Hmm, I'm going to have to find a way to replicate RealVNC's cloud connection, as sometimes the remote machine for me is in a different country

I haven't tried it, but I notice that TigerVNC, when installed on MS Windows, has a 'Listening Server' option which - I think - does something related to this issue.

[steveiliop56]

Will I be able to connect to the vnc server on the pi through the real vnc viewer?

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

When betatesting wayvnc (server) and tigervnc (viewer) I was never able to get that working.
So hopefully there is a well explained how-too for noobs like me running different OS versions on there hosts...

Wayland - during beta testing - had lot of downsides as well. Lets's wait and see what it comes out once released.

[raehpi]

Hello!

I recently saw the post about the all new raspberry pi 5 (which doesn't have the headphone jack ) and also saw about the new raspberry pi os 12 ditching x11 and dhcpcd for wayland and networkmanager. I have tried wayland through raspi-config but the vnc server disappears which means its probably not supported. So the question is will vnc server remain in raspberry pi os 12?

Yup! Unfortunately, our existing RealVNC server doesn't support Wayland, so we're using WayVNC as the server on the upcoming Bookworm release. The WayVNC server running on your Pi can be connected to using the TigerVNC client, which has binary releases for Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Is there an equivalent app for iOS/iPadOS that is able to connect to WayVNC? Didn't see anything on a quick look.

[MiscBits]

This is currently a deal breaker for me and a Bookworm upgrade

Get the feeling I'm going to be working through https://help.realvnc.com/hc/en-us/artic ... g-on-Linux or getting the OK for tailscale / zetotier...

[steveiliop56]

The question is why realvnc doesn't make their server work with Wayland...

[hippy]

Is there any support for RDP under Windows with Bookworm on a Pi ?

That's what I have generally used with my Pi with 'xrdp' installed.

And I expect how things are with respect to TeamViewer will be a question for some.

The big question is, will it be possible to 'downgrade' Bookworm to use X11 so it's usable with what people currently have while they figure out the best way forward ?

[incognitum]

Is there an equivalent app for iOS/iPadOS that is able to connect to WayVNC? Didn't see anything on a quick look.

Safari is likely to work, if you upgrade WayVNC first to something more recent than is in Debian's repository, and install novnc/nginx...
https://github.com/raspberrypi/bookworm ... k/issues/5

[Gavinmc42]

The big question is, will it be possible to 'downgrade' Bookworm to use X11 so it's usable with what people currently have while they figure out the best way forward ?

Should still be able to use Bookworm Lite and put an X11 desktop on it.
Miss out on all the speed improvements but if using VNC anyway it should not matter.

You can try now, Debian 12 on RPi img are around and work on Pi4 and they come as Lite and need you to install a Desktop anyway.
https://raspberrytips.com/install-debia ... pberry-pi/

Raspberry PI Bookworm OS is coming tweaked with the Pi5 features.

[bls]

The big question is, will it be possible to 'downgrade' Bookworm to use X11 so it's usable with what people currently have while they figure out the best way forward ?

Should still be able to use Bookworm Lite and put an X11 desktop on it.
Miss out on all the speed improvements but if using VNC anyway it should not matter.

Indeed. This works really well.

It's also possible to make the Bookworm Desktop version use X11 by default, but it seems easier to build up from Lite.

[ejolson]

The big question is, will it be possible to 'downgrade' Bookworm to use X11 so it's usable with what people currently have while they figure out the best way forward ?

Should still be able to use Bookworm Lite and put an X11 desktop on it.
Miss out on all the speed improvements but if using VNC anyway it should not matter.

Indeed. This works really well.

It's also possible to make the Bookworm Desktop version use X11 by default, but it seems easier to build up from Lite.

Does the new Pi 5 require Wayland?

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

wayvnc is lacking the file transfer capability - which realvnc offers - as well and adds some complexity to it.

Might not be a show stopper, but needs to be explained in detail to allow 'the average user' to make use of it.

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

..
Does the new Pi 5 require Wayland?

no idea if it's 'required' (why should it?) - it just comes with wayland as most people think that animated windows and stuff 'are essential'

[Gavinmc42]

Does the new Pi 5 require Wayland?

Don't think it is "requires", my impression is Wayland/Wayfire is just twice as fast as old X11.

it just comes with wayland as most people think that animated windows and stuff 'are essential'

Nah, just an old dream becoming real
Like Vulkan is faster than old OpenGL.

Been happy with my Pi400 on Bullseye, just Bookworm is better, but I don't use VNC.
Time for VNC to catch up, any bleeding edge VNC apps using Vulkan etc?

[jamesh]

Does the new Pi 5 require Wayland?

Don't think it is "requires", my impression is Wayland/Wayfire is just twice as fast as old X11.

it just comes with wayland as most people think that animated windows and stuff 'are essential'

Nah, just an old dream becoming real
Like Vulkan is faster than old OpenGL.

Been happy with my Pi400 on Bullseye, just Bookworm is better, but I don't use VNC.
Time for VNC to catch up, any bleeding edge VNC apps using Vulkan etc?

I don't think we have tested X11 on Pi5 at all, because Wayland is so much faster. This is nothing to do with window animations, it's just much faster because Wayland handles GPU acceleration much better than X11, which was produced well before the era of GPUs so architecturally is inefficient.

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

Does the new Pi 5 require Wayland?

Don't think it is "requires", my impression is Wayland/Wayfire is just twice as fast as old X11.

it just comes with wayland as most people think that animated windows and stuff 'are essential'

Nah, just an old dream becoming real
Like Vulkan is faster than old OpenGL.

Been happy with my Pi400 on Bullseye, just Bookworm is better, but I don't use VNC.
Time for VNC to catch up, any bleeding edge VNC apps using Vulkan etc?

I don't think we have tested X11 on Pi5 at all, because Wayland is so much faster. This is nothing to do with window animations, it's just much faster because Wayland handles GPU acceleration much better than X11, which was produced well before the era of GPUs so architecturally is inefficient.

I'm keen to test wayland and see if it has seen some improvement/some missing features added. Reported some during beta testing of Bookworm already (missing panning/transform i.e.).

[caldimerda]

RealVNC is pretty important to me. I would describe myself as very much old-school CLI man but I have 20 Pi's at home and 50 at work and it is very handy using a single client to see the GUI on what are multiple different models running several OS versions. And with each new Pi being more capable of running a GUI, actually seeing and interacting with the screen has become more important.

The idea of going back to needing perhaps more than one client is not great. And TBH, given Wayland's been around in the Linux world for a while without RealVNC yet getting to grips with it - it doesn't look too promising in the short term.

It would be nice to hear optimistic words that say yes, we're talking to RealVNC and yes, we're hopeful of a solution!

[jamesh]

RealVNC is pretty important to me. I would describe myself as very much old-school CLI man but I have 20 Pi's at home and 50 at work and it is very handy using a single client to see the GUI on what are multiple different models running several OS versions. And with each new Pi being more capable of running a GUI, actually seeing and interacting with the screen has become more important.

The idea of going back to needing perhaps more than one client is not great. And TBH, given Wayland's been around in the Linux world for a while without RealVNC yet getting to grips with it - it doesn't look too promising in the short term.

It would be nice to hear optimistic words that say yes, we're talking to RealVNC and yes, we're hopeful of a solution!

We have certainly spoken to RealVNC, starting some time ago. It is their product, so they are the people who will need to make it work with Wayland.

[rpiMike]

RealVNC is pretty important to me. I would describe myself as very much old-school CLI man but I have 20 Pi's at home and 50 at work and it is very handy using a single client to see the GUI on what are multiple different models running several OS versions. And with each new Pi being more capable of running a GUI, actually seeing and interacting with the screen has become more important.

The idea of going back to needing perhaps more than one client is not great. And TBH, given Wayland's been around in the Linux world for a while without RealVNC yet getting to grips with it - it doesn't look too promising in the short term.

It would be nice to hear optimistic words that say yes, we're talking to RealVNC and yes, we're hopeful of a solution!

Contact RealVNC, the more that do may influence a Wayland update, I have.

https://www.realvnc.com/en/contact-us/

[any1]

WayVNC is free, open source software. We can improve it together. The only thing that can't be easily replicated is the cloud thing. Because wayvnc is developed mostly without funding, there is no money to pay for hosting such a service.

However, there are alternatives to RealVNC's cloud service such as Tailscale. There are some benefits to using Tailscale; as far as I understand, it can operate in p2p mode given the right conditions, so there should be very little additional latency. The encryption employed by Tailscale is state-of-the-art, so it improves upon the somewhat lacklustre authentication & encryption offered by standard VNC.

[scruss]

We have certainly spoken to RealVNC, starting some time ago. It is their product, so they are the people who will need to make it work with Wayland.

RealVNC staff were active on the wayland-devel mailing list in 2013-4, so they've had some awareness of the issue. Unfortunately, the sum total of their current knowledge base seems to be about replacing Wayland with X11 to make RealVNC work again.