Is /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc. supposed not to exist?

Question

I'm trying to connect to Amazon EC2 Ubuntu 14.04 instance through VNC but always fail (only grey background). Some articles say we should have a line in .vnc/xstartup which reads exec sh /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc But I checked this file and found that this file does not exist at all in EC2 Ubuntu. So if sh /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc is executed, there should be an error like

sh: 0: Can't open  ...

I guess that this is the reason why I can not display the desktop of EC2 ubuntu from TightVNC (I can successfully connect). So my question is: is /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc supposed not to exist? If so, what happens if the execution of sh /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc fails? If it should exist, what contents should this file contain?

Solution

If you have the xinit package, the file you mention should be installed.

$ dpkg -L xinit | grep xinitrc
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
$

If it's not, these commands ought to fix it:

sudo apt-get purge xinit
sudo apt-get install xinit

Comments

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

The file belongs to the xinit package, so you may want to install (or reinstall) xinit.

[user280121]

Yes, I have installed xinit package. I know that by running a command dpkg -l|grep xinit and seeing xinit in the results output.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Then purge it and install it again to get /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.

[user280121]

@Gunnar Hjalmarsson: I did, no use.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Strange. (I still posted an answer to clarify.)

[user280121]

Thank you for the answer. I tried your method again, this time /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc appeared, with a line ". /etc/X11/Xsession" in it. But I still only get a grey screen in the remote desktop when connecting.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@user280121: Then the cause for the problem is something else. Can't help with that, I'm afraid.