Running MagicMirror via HDMI but controlling it via extended virtual desktop

Question

Total linux noob here and at this point without some of the required HW to actually try this out but;

I'm meaning to use my raspberry pi 3b (raspbian stretch) as somewhat of a home automation center while at the same time running MagicMirror. I'm currently in-between-monitors for my rpi so i'm using VNC to connect my phone. My goal would be to have a virtual extended display i could play with via VNC (or other) while the physical display would always remain displaying the magicmirror. My current understanding is that VNC only mirrors the physical display, which would not suit my case.

Is this possible? The reason i'm asking ahead of time is that i'd prefer to have all the necessary HW available when i actually start building my frame etc. so if i need another rpi connected or else i'd prefer to have it ready at hand.

Thank you!

Jesse

Answer 1

There are different VNC servers out there. vnc4server for example does spawn virtual desktops by default.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vnc4server

Answer 2

The RealVNC server which is included in Raspbian by default can create virtual desktops in addition to providing access to the console desktop. You just need to run the vncserver-virtual command to start a new virtual desktop. It will tell you the address to use to connect to the session (which will be the IP address or hostname followed by :1 for the first session).