How to Use Remote Desktop on the Raspberry Pi with VNC
Shawn Hymel Introduction
If you like the idea of a headless computer setup for your Raspberry Pi (i.e. one without a keyboard, mouse, or monitor) but want access to the full graphical desktop, then you're in luck! By using a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) program, you can access a remote desktop over the network!
For schools and individuals that need to use the full desktop for certain applications (Scratch, creating your own graphical interface, etc.), using a VNC client to access your Raspberry Pi might be the way to go.
The good news is that Raspbian (the recommended Raspberry Pi operating system) comes with RealVNC installed by default. The bad news is that we need to enable it using some other means.
Required Materials
To follow along with this tutorial, you will need a Raspberry Pi, power supply, and micro SD card. Note that no monitor, keyboard, or mouse is required!
Optional Materials
All that being said, you can also use a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to enable the VNC server. Once you have enabled it, you will not need these accessories any more (unless you really want them).
Suggested Reading
If you aren't familiar with the following concepts, we recommend checking out these tutorials before continuing.