The Geek Blog

I’ve had problems connecting to my Ubuntu 9.10 server via Mac OS’ built-in VNC client, “Screen Sharing”.  Frequently when I connect, I get a white screen with no indication that the connection is working.  If I type characters or click the mouse, it does actually send those events to the remote side.  My only option was to use Chicken of the VNC (which sucks) to connect to my server.  Finally, I did some digging and found the solution/workaround.

1. Open a new Finder window.
2. Click “Go” and then “Go to Folder” (or hit Command-Shift-G).
3. Type in “/System/Library/CoreServices” and hit enter.
4. Find the “Screen Sharing” application, click once to highlight.
5. Click “File” and then “Get Info” (or hit Command-I).
6. Find the checkbox labeled “Open in 32-bit mode” and check it.
7. Close the Info window and Finder folder window.

That’s it!  Apparently there is a bug in the application only when running in 64-bit mode.  I don’t really care why it fixes it, I’m just glad its fixed and I thought I’d share.

Thanks to the anonymous user on Mac OS X Hints!

I’m a fan of Unix operating systems in general.  That’s what got me interested in switching to Mac OS X because it’s Unix-based.  It was inevitable that I would eventually get a server-class machine again that wasn’t Mac-based.  The new Dell machine that I have running has Ubuntu 8.10 – a Debian-based machine which is something I’m new too.

I wanted to set up the Ubuntu machine to share files with the Macs on my network but not by using the crappy Samba protocol or even NFS.  I know both are troublesome and not as speedy on a Mac.  My only other choice was to get AFP working on the Ubuntu server and to my delight, packages exist for this.  Netatalk is an Appletalk daemon and Avahi is a Bonjour zeroconf equivalent.  Installing those packages and starting the services didn’t do it for me.  Leopard was having issues with the cleartext passwords being passed to AFPD so I went nowhere.

I did some digging and realized that OpenSSL isn’t GNU and therefore support for it in netatalk isn’t compiled in.  Not being super familar with how Debian packaging works, I looked for a guide to help me with recompiling and installing the updated netatalk package.

I found it and boy it’s an awesome guide.

http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/06/ubuntu-as-mac-file-server-and-time-machine-volume/

Take a look, try it out.  It worked perfectly me for on Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10).