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ROS via VNC "XKEYBOARD extension not present"

I'm setting up a new Ubuntu server on Digital Ocean to use for a hosted ROS development environment. Here's what I have:

I create a tunnel from my Mac to that server with SSH:

ssh -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5901 -C -N -l <usermame> <server ip>

I use a VNC Cliend (VNC Viewer) to connect to the Ubuntu server. I see the xfce4 desktop. I know that I have a pretty good thing going because I can run FireFox (a heavy Gui app). Then I try the most minimal bit of ROS:

rosrun rqt_console rqt_console

and I get this error message:

Qt: XKEYBOARD extension not present on the X server (see attached image)

image description

I know this is maybe not a ROS problem. It is probably either a VNC or Ubuntu configuration detail. But I thought that this community might have some experience with it. I've posted this question on StackOverflow as well. Thanks

Qt: Keyboard extension not present on the X Server

Asked by pitosalas on 2020-04-21 16:36:28 UTC

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I've posted this question on StackOverflow as well.

then please include the link to your SO question so we can keep things connected.

Asked by gvdhoorn on 2020-04-22 04:04:08 UTC

Answers

I got through this issue by lots of googling. I use this set of instructions: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-vnc-on-ubuntu-18-04 but instead of installing:

sudo apt install tightvncserver

I used 

sudo apt-get install tigervnc-standalone-server

Which solves the immediate problem. I can run ROS, various qt utilities, and turtlesim pretty well. However, getting rviz and gazebo running breaks. I dont know if it's simply matter of performance of the particular node I have on digital ocean or something more fundamental with the configuration.

Asked by pitosalas on 2020-04-22 06:13:38 UTC

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