My setup of beginning with Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS and then installing mythbuntu-desktop ended up without a VNC server running.

I’ve wanted to at time log in on a virtual display at times, while someone is watching TV. So I will have a primary and secondary server running.

For this purpose, I will be using x11vnc. It is the recommended VNC server for xubuntu, because it is lighter than some of the others. Some of this comes from http://robot.wpi.edu/wiki/index.php/Setting_up_an_XUbuntu_VNC_Server.

Install the server.

sudo apt-get install x11vnc

Setup a password file

sudo x11vnc -storepasswd /etc/x11vnc.pass

This command will ask you to provide a password and confirm it.

Once the password file is created, restrict the permissions of the file so only root can access it.

sudo chmod 600 /etc/x11vnc.pass

Automatically start the server

You may want to start the server automatically when ever the computer is running. If you do want this behavior, you will want the server to start even before a user has logged in. In order to accomplish this, place the following code in a file called /etc/init/x11vnc.conf

start on login-session-start
script
x11vnc -xkb -noxrecord -noxfixes -noxdamage -display :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -forever -shared -bg -o /var/log/x11vnc.log -rfbauth /etc/x11vnc.pass -rfbport 5900
end script

I will add the virtual display in the future.