Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Koralatov · Apr 20, 2008, 05:48 PM

I've got an iMac G4 with a busted display (I opened it up and the connector on the motherboard has come off). As such, I've decided making it an iTunes/print server seemed like a good idea, so VNC seemed to be the logical way of overcoming some of the problems inherent in having no display. As it's running Tiger, VNC is already built in, so I set it up and I thought I was good to go. However, Chicken of the VNC—which is widely recommended in various articles/posts on the subject—seems to have fallen off the internet. I can't find a copy anywhere. Does anyone know where I can get it, or, failing that, another free client that does the same thing?

Dakar the Fourth · Apr 20, 2008, 06:14 PM

I believe I use Vine Server to set-up access and Chicken of the VNC to do the actual accessing.

dimmer · Apr 20, 2008, 09:29 PM

It takes a few click throughs, but COtVNC is available at http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.ne...otvnc-20b4.dmg

Koralatov · Apr 21, 2008, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by dimmer

It takes a few click throughs, but COtVNC is available at http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.ne...otvnc-20b4.dmg

Fantastic. Very much appreciated—I’d tried a whole bunch of times with no success to download it. After a couple of goes with the link you provided, it worked.

Simon · Apr 22, 2008, 04:14 AM

It's been ages since the last beta version. Is it no longer being actively developed?

Koralatov · Apr 22, 2008, 01:48 PM

Originally Posted by Simon

It's been ages since the last beta version. Is it no longer being actively developed?

That would be my guess—something that hasn’t had a new version in two years is usually something that’s effectively dead. Shame, because it seems to be universally considered one of the best VNC viewers on the Mac.

vmarks · Apr 24, 2008, 07:59 AM

Don't bother with ChickenOfTheVNC - it's slow. slow slow slow.

I've had good experiences with jolly's fast vnc. JollysFastVNC

This should be really easy, because jolly's finds bonjour clients that are vnc enabled.

Koralatov · May 3, 2008, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by vmarks

Don't bother with ChickenOfTheVNC - it's slow. slow slow slow.

I've had good experiences with jolly's fast vnc. JollysFastVNC

This should be really easy, because jolly's finds bonjour clients that are vnc enabled.

Many thanks for that; I couldn’t get Chicken working, so I’ll give that a go and see what happens.

stukdog · May 10, 2008, 08:12 AM

Originally Posted by Koralatov

Many thanks for that; I couldn’t get Chicken working, so I’ll give that a go and see what happens.

IF you find that JollyFast doesn't work for you and want to try Chicken again, be sure to try build 2.0b2. It's Power PC, but runs in Rosetta and is the only that has always connected to every Mac I have. (And I do A LOT of VNC)

Koralatov · May 25, 2008, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by stukdog

IF you find that JollyFast doesn't work for you and want to try Chicken again, be sure to try build 2.0b2. It's Power PC, but runs in Rosetta and is the only that has always connected to every Mac I have. (And I do A LOT of VNC)

I’m using Jolly’s just now (after finally getting my ass in gear and starting work on the machines), and so far it’s worked flawlessly—it found the VNC-enabled iMac perfectly the first time, and I’ve not disconnected once in a couple of hours use. The refresh rate does leave something to be desired (it seems to be around ~5 frames a second), but I can live with that.

Thanks for the input though. If needs be, I’ll give Chicken another go.

dimmer · May 25, 2008, 02:04 PM

You can help VNC speed by reducing the color depth on the remote system, getting rid of any complex desktop patterns, reducing screen resolution. It will never be a speed demon though!

Koralatov · May 25, 2008, 03:59 PM

Originally Posted by dimmer

You can help VNC speed by reducing the color depth on the remote system, getting rid of any complex desktop patterns, reducing screen resolution. It will never be a speed demon though!

Thanks for the tip. I reduced it to SVGA at thousands of colours and it made quite a difference to performance—everything’s much speedier now. I tried lowering it to VGA with 256 colours, but it went very weird over VNC.