This is what works for me. In /etc/services I have vnc-640x480x8 5950/tcp vnc-800x600x8 5951/tcp vnc-800x600x16 5952/tcp vnc-1024x768x16 5953/tcp These correspond to the various resultions for VNC windows. In /etc/inetd.conf I have vnc-640x480x8 stream tcp nowait nobody.tty /usr/bin/X11/Xvnc Xvnc -inetd -query localhost -once -geometry 640x480 -depth 8 vnc-800x600x8 stream tcp nowait nobody.tty /usr/bin/X11/Xvnc Xvnc -inetd -query localhost -once -geometry 800x600 -depth 8 vnc-800x600x16 stream tcp nowait nobody.tty /usr/bin/X11/Xvnc Xvnc -inetd -query localhost -once -geometry 800x600 -depth 16 vnc-1024x768x16 stream tcp nowait nobody.tty /usr/bin/X11/Xvnc Xvnc -inetd -query localhost -once -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 These arrange for VNC to be started at the appropriate resolutions. The -query localhost tells the X server which Xvnc starts to send an XDMCP query to localhost to get a display manager. I use KDM on my system, and so I had to alter/etc/kde2/kdm/kdmrc to change Enable=false to Enable=true I also changed /etc/kde2/kdm/kdmrc/Xaccess to allow connections. Also need to reload inetd (update-inetd may handle this in a package) and restart kdm You can then use a VNC connection to display 50 (i.e. systemname:50 in the vnc viewer) to get a 640x480x8 session. For GDM you need to change Enable=false to Enable=true in /etc/gdm/gdm.conf (but I have not tested this to see if anything else is needed) Using VNC this way has been useful for me - I hope it may be useful for someone else also. John Lines