Connecting to the Raspberry from TightVNC

Question

The Pi sets up RealVNC. Is it possible to use a TightVNC client to connect to it?

I have enabled the VNC server on Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) without any special configuration. From the Pi to localhost the vncviewer localhost works fine.

When trying to connect from a Debian host I get a security type error. This is on Debian Stretch apt install xtightvncviewer:

$ vncviewer pi.local
Connected to RFB server, using protocol version 3.3
No configured security type is supported by 3.3 VNC Viewer

It looks like the Pi is running RealVNC and I'm trying to run TightVNC on the client. Seems like it should work.

RealVNC is not in the main Debian Stretch repository. I'm trying to work with something that is. Other options gvncviewer and ssvnc (tightVNC with SSL/SSH support) are available but do not work out of the box.

Answer 1

Yes and no.

RealVNC uses a proprietary authentication method, but you can configure it to use standard VNC authentication.

RealVNC also uses custom code to display screens using GPU acceleration which TightVNC lacks, so some apps will not display.

If you are happy with TightVNC you can install it on the Pi or you can use RealVNC viewer on your computer.