To achieve this, you are going to need a VNC server running on the host computer, and a VNC viewer running on your Android phone. This may sound complicated to some, but its really easy. Just follow this simple how-to! 🙂

Quoting wikipedia for those who have not heard it before:

“Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a graphical desktop sharing system that uses the RFB protocol to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard and mouse events from one computer to another, relaying the graphical screen updates back in the other direction, over a network. VNC is platform-independent – a VNC viewer on one operating system may connect to a VNC server on the same or any other operating system.”

On your KDE Desktop

Install Krfb and run it. It should be in your distributions packages.

To be able to login anytime and from anyplace to your system, you will need to go into Settings > Configure Desktop Sharing > Security and edit as below:

• Disable ask before accepting connections
• Allow remote connections to control your desktop
• Allow uninvited connections
• Setup a password: make it a difficult one, using a long phrase, numbers and symbols.
• Leave the rest at default.

Remember that you need to keep Krfb running, otherwise you will not be able to login to your desktop from the phone.

On your Android device:

Install android-vnc-viewer. It’s in the market, however I get my apps from the FDroid Repository, which is a growing catalogue of installable FOSS applications for Android.

Launch android-vnc-viewer and edit these settings:

Nickname: Pick a nickname (you can leave it blank if you want)

Password: The password you used in Krfb

Address: Here you need to enter your IP address. You can find it by running ifconfig in the konsole. Check under eth0 or wlan0 for inet addr. Mine was 192.168.1.4. If you see something similar, this is the IP from your local LAN. You can use this when at home, but if you want to access your computer when you are away from your home network, then you have to change this IP address with your public IP address.

Port: 5900. If you are having problems connecting, make sure this port is being forwarded correctly on your modem/router. Portforward and Canyouseeme can be useful for that.

Color format: You can choose whatever you like. For this tutorial I used 24-bit color (4 bpp) which is the best quality. If you are on a slower connection or need faster response, using a lower quality will help.

Leave the rest as default.

Hit connect and you should be in your KDE system:

You manage the system with all the normal gestures: pinch to zoom in, slide to move around in the desktop, tap to click etc..You can double tap on the desktop or a file to right click on it. You will soon realize that you are able to complete the majority of tasks you normally do with a keyboard and mouse on your normal desktop.

There are many configurations you can edit to change the way you interact in the android-vnc-viewer, check here for the complete guide.

Have in mind there are 2 ways to send text, one is by enabling the android keyboard with long pressing the menu button, the other is to first write the text in the android-vnc-viewer and then sending it to the desktop. I find the second way better for long texts.

Sending text to Kate:

Using Dolphin:

Launching applications with Kickoff and Krunner:

Using special keys to launch Krunner and Yakuake:

In Yakuake:

Chatting in KDE-telepathy:

As you can see it doesn’t require much trouble to get it running!

Enjoy! 🙂