When setting up VNC server in Gnome, I get a grey screen (or a black one) and the checkboxes to "Accept clipboard from viewers", "Send clipboard to viewers", "Send primary selection to viewers". I'm setting up a VNC server on a Debian 10 machine that has Gnome environment. A zillion articles can be found on Internet, they have the same global path: Install Gnome and GDM Install TigerVNC Setup the VNC Server: password + startup Run the server Connect from the client One of them is this TeknoTut how-to I took inspiration from. The tutorial is good, but I needed to complete it with extra steps in order to make it work: If the current user has already a running Gnome session, I just get the "grey screen with the checkboxes". It is good to know that: The "grey screen" is due to the "xsetroot" command that can be seen in some howtos The checkboxes are due to the "vncconfig -iconic &" command