TightVNC runs on Gentoo/sparc, but there are display problems. The vncviewer shows a desktop okay, but the characters in any text appear like mirror writing. There are some other anomalies as well. This appears to be a problem with the Xvnc server, not the vncviewer. I can use the sparc viewer against an x86 server okay. It is not a simple endian issue, because the same problem appears with the viewer & server running on the same sparc box. The latest ebuild for tightvnc is for version 1.2.3. I downloaded and compiled version 1.2.5, but sadly the result was the same. I can't use regular AT&T vnc on sparc (see bug #4691).
vnc-3.3.3-r3 (if you merge it manually because it's masked in the profile) builds OK on sparc64 now but has the same mirror problem you refer to with tightvnc. I don't have java installed yet, but when I do, I'd like to try the java server to see if it has the same problem as the vncviewer shows.
ok, the java client is no different (we expected that) not to mention I said java server before.. :) I tried patching the stock vnc sources with the debian patch ( http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/v/vnc/vnc_3.3.3r2-20.diff.gz ) instead of the mandrake and gentoo ones, compiled with `make CDEBUGFLAGS="-mcpu=v9 -O3 -pipe" World` backed up /usr/bin/Xvnc, copied ./programs/Xserver/Xvnc to /usr/bin and ./libvncauth/libvncauth.* to /usr/local/lib (just to cleanup easily later) then restarted the server, the backwards fonts are gone and it appear to work as expected. perhaps someone (with more knowledge than I) might take a closer look at the debian patch to see exactly what resolves this particular issue? it should also be noted that with just the debian patch vnc does build on sparc now, the patch introduced in -r3 of the ebuild also allowed it to work so maybe they are similar/related.
I have put in a bug with the tightvnc developers. It can be viewed at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=659234&group_id=14067&atid=114067 Hopefully something will come of this.
Tested against the new tightvnc (1.2.8), problem still exists. No response to the open bug in their bug tracking system.
This one is definitely a vendor problem. We've been keeping it open until a resolution is found but we could close it since it isn't a gentoo bug.
Found a Debian patch that appears to fix this issue.
The Debian patch works here and has been applied to tightvnc-1.2.9-r2