[gentoo-user] Easiest remote desktop for Windows client?

[gentoo-user] Easiest remote desktop for Windows client?

[Grant Edwards]

What's the easiest way to get a remote desktop working for a Gentoo
server with a Windows 10 client machine?

A lot of sources recommend xrdb since Windows comes with a native RDP
client. But there is no ebuild for xrdb in portage -- though I found
one in an overlay.

VNC would probably be OK, but I'd need to install a VNC client on the
Windows end, and that may be problematic.

Does it matter that I don't run a "desktop environment"?  I have a
pretty minimalistic setup using the openbox WM and a couple tint2
panels.

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Easiest remote desktop for Windows client?

[Julien Roy]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 422 bytes --]

Hello,

On 8/24/22 18:03, Grant Edwards wrote:
> What's the easiest way to get a remote desktop working for a Gentoo
> server with a Windows 10 client machine?

net-misc/freerdp has a server USE flag. I never used it, but from what I 
read, it can be used as a RDP server like you would a Windows machine.
Otherwise, you could also setup a VNC server and install a VNC client on 
your Windows PC.

-- 
Julien

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 495 bytes --]

[gentoo-user] Re: Easiest remote desktop for Windows client?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2022-08-24, Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:

> What's the easiest way to get a remote desktop working for a Gentoo
> server with a Windows 10 client machine?
>
> A lot of sources recommend xrdb since Windows comes with a native RDP
> client. But there is no ebuild for xrdb in portage -- though I found
> one in an overlay.

The xrdp-0.9.19 and xorgxrdp-0.2.18-r1 ebuilds in the ACE overlay
installed with no fuss at all:

    https://data.gpo.zugaina.org/ace/net-misc/xrdp/

** And they didn't pull in any new dependencies! **

The /etc/init.d/xrdp openrc script works as expected.

I didn't have a ~/.xinitrc, so I got the default X11 "xclock and three
xterms" when I connected remotely from the Windows machine.

So I created a ~/.xinitrc file with this in it:

    #!/bin/bash
    exec openbox --startup /home/grante/.config/openbox/autostart-xrdb

My normal local desktop startup commands are in /home/grante/.config/openbox/autostart,
but I wanted a remote session to start up a little differently, so I
created a second openbox autostart file for use by xrdp sessions.

Everything works fine except for openbox menu items that start urxvt
with options to set the title and exec an application. Those menu
entries appear to do nothing. The menu entry to start a "plain" urxvt
works fine. When I manually execute urxvt with title/exec options in a
remote session, that works fine too.  So I'm a little baffled why
those commands don't work from the openbox menu for a remote session.

Of course, there's still the inescapable brokenness of apps like
Chrome and Firefox which insist only one instance per user can run at
any time. Apparently the concept of multiple GUI sessions running
simultaneously on one machine is beyond the grasp of some people...

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Easiest remote desktop for Windows client?

[Julien Roy]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 724 bytes --]



On 8/24/22 19:48, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2022-08-24, Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Of course, there's still the inescapable brokenness of apps like
> Chrome and Firefox which insist only one instance per user can run at
> any time. Apparently the concept of multiple GUI sessions running
> simultaneously on one machine is beyond the grasp of some people...

You can create a separate profile for Firefox (I assume Chrome too) 
which allows you to run a second instance, though it's not ideal, since 
you don't have the same bookmarks, history, etc. A shell script should 
be able to copy those over, which you could run every time you start 
your openbox session.

-- 
Julien

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 495 bytes --]