Add virtual X11 screen to use via VNC

Question

I'm trying to add a second screen to my ubuntu 14.04 gnome setup, via a VNC client. To be clear: I don't want to connect to a different session, but the same. However, I want to see a different screen, not mirror the existing physical screen. I just want to extend the existing display with a "virtual" second screen that I can reach through VNC, instead of a physical one.

Much to my dismay, I haven't found a way to achieve this, let alone a simple one. Is there a way at all?

The VNC client will be an iPad app in this case, but it could be anything with a VNC client really, such as an old laptop that I wanted to use as a second monitor.

This might be a duplicate of "Adding a virtual screen to xorg.conf 11.04 (third display over vnc)". However, there is no answer to the actual question, and an answer suggesting a different route is accepted, so I'm posting this one to try and find an actual solution.

Solution

You can use virtscreen on linux to use an ipad or other computer as a secondary screen.

sudo apt-get install x11vnc
wget https://github.com/kbumsik/VirtScreen/releases/download/0.3.1/virtscreen.deb
sudo dpkg -i virtscreen.deb
virtscreen

The app is made by Bumsik Kim who commented above (but it's been a year and they've not posted their solution, so I did).

Comments

[Admin]

bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=191555 That seems to be your solution. Didn't try, but looks good.

[Admin]

did it actually 'work' good when you tried? (if you did try?)

[Admin]

@Rexford it worked well, but not fast enough to watch a video or drag files around. VNC is really slow for those use cases. I usually just put a terminal window on the iPad screen and do everything else on the main display.

[Admin]

@AntonioFeitosa This question is not a duplicate of "How do you use an android tablet as a second display?" or of any other question that I could find when I searched for another duplicate question.

[Admin]

I made a simple bash script to make a tablet a second display. Copy ipad_monitor.sh (Don't worry. it also works with any VNC clients) from my blog post.

[Admin]

@BumsikKim that's great! I have a script of my own now (I had forgotten about this question). But yours is tidier, you should post an extract of your blog post as an answer :)

[Admin]

How about the answers in askubuntu.com/q/453109/26246