I have an old pc on which I run jellyfin and some other stuff. It’s only connected through lan. I used to use window’s remotedesktop to connect to it, but that stopped working.
Now I’m looking for a good remote desktop. Because it s tucked away in a corner, fysical acces to it is cumbersome.
My server runs mint with xfce. My laptop runs windows 11, because of work reasons.
I’m inclined to use something like anydesk, but I’m unsure how to trust that company.
Edit: I got rustdesk up and running and it’s a good solution for my usecase. Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.
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I guess another vote for RustDesk. I use it to administer several personal computers that my friends have. They are old heads like me, but unlike me, their tech savvy is lacking. So if they have an issue, I can pop in and help in any way I can. I was using Remote Desktop Assistant for a while, but kept hearing about RustDesk so I gave it a go.
Oh my god, you’re brilliant! I can have my parents install the rustdesk client on their pc! This is a life changer!
Um…I would not classify myself as brilliant, but yea…it works.
Depends exactly what you’re doing on that old PC.
If you just need to connect for administration and the like, VNC is decent. It’s my default.
If you want to watch videos or the like, I’d definitely suggest Sunlight and Moonlight. It’s a streaming remote desktop that’s meant for streaming gaming, and so it’s really good at video and audio.
I like RustDesk. If you’re worried about connectivity, you can even run your own relay server.
Seconded rustdesk!
I initially misread your question as “What good is remote desktop software?” and I thought, "look at this person, humble bragging that they are fit enough to occasionally walk across the room.
I guess now I need to go exercise.
Sunshine and Moonlight.
It is made for gaming, but can be used for remote desktop. I use it when my laptop cannot handle a Blender scene and I want to use my desktop. It also works good with Headscale (or Tailscale if you use that). You can enable end to end encryption too.
If you want a direct replacement for Anydesk, check out Rustdesk. It is FOSS, but does not have good reputation.
Where does rustdesk not have a good reputation? I see it being recommended regularly and also use it myself heavily. Never had issues or heard about issues (that I would attribute to reputation).
Something something something China bad. It’s a bit overblown, but there was some drama about the dev earlier in its lifespan. I think something to do with not all of its code being open source? Like the official servers were running a closed version or something. I’m definitely butchering the information. It’s good software and works as intended.
I personally use Sunshine and Moonlight, but not because I have any particular problem with RustDesk, just couldn’t get it working well, and Sunshine also works for in house game streaming if I want.
Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. In the end I also use Sunshine for game streaming, but for pure remote desktop access RustDesk is far nicer, since I can also quickly move files back and forth. RDP is even nicer in that regard, where I can remote-mount local devices.
Fwiw I use a fork called Apollo because it enables a headless setup
Sadly Windows-only last time I checked
Another vote for Rustdesk
I use it mostly for family tech support where MY PC is running Linux and THEY are on Windows though it works great in both directions
I use RustDesk because it’s good enough. It may not work for everything, but it is open source and has suited my needs.
I have it launch on boot in Mint and it works fine
+1 for RustDesk. Basically open-source de-shittified TeamViewer.
Exactly how I found it. Looking for open-source TeamViewer essentially.
Works very well for the tasks I throw at it. Hosting it yourself is easy as well
RustDesk really is fantastic. No shade to any of the other solutions suggested in this thread, but 99% of the time when someone needs remote desktop access, RustDesk is exactly what they need.
Agreed and you can self host the backend if you want.
Yeah I suppose I should have said what I’ve used it for but I think I’ve only really used it for Android, Linux, and I think I may have put it on Windows once, not sure. Overall I run into few circumstances I’ve ever needed to go the machine, usually it’s tied to bios/driver issues on the laptop I use for a server, not Rust issues
But does it allow login on machine and multi monitors like RDP does? These are two features I can’t live without (at least the former).
May I ask a bit more?
Can you launch on system start up as opposed to user, yes in my experience.
Can you login when the user has not yet been logged in, yes in my experience so long as the program is launched by the system as a service and not a user login option.
If the machine has multiple monitors, you may need to test, as I standardly use a phone (android) to remote to my desktop/laptop seveer environments where I can individually choose a monitor if they have more than 1 I believe, but having one screen on the phone, I don’t view both at the same time… nor would it be convenient…
It’s a free 2 minute try it out really. The uninstall if you don’t like. If you really like it maybe consider hosting your own. But otherwise you can use it from their severs for free and it will remember your recent connections and passwords if you want on your local device…
I feel like a salesperson for a free product lol
Edit: I realized I asked no questions, did that answer yours?
Got it for login, makes sense, but not sure whether multimon really works. I mean when the server doesn’t have physical monitors attached. I know I could do the install-try, but if anybody has experience it’s even easier. So experience is appreciated.
It actually does both. Not really tested the multimonitor features but its there and it works, not sure if to the same degree as in rdp.
Nomachine
if you can afford the hardware, getting something dedicated like a JetKVM is nice because you don’t have to wait for VNC software to boot. since it acts like a monitor and keyboard, you can even enter BIOS with it. JetKVM sells an extension board that you could hook up to your server motherboard’s power buttons to turn it on/off too.
for fully software solutions, i like using apollo on the server and moonlight on the clients. it’s built for game streaming, but it works for remote desktop too. i have apollo and moonlight installed on a bunch of my devices anyways so this saves me from installing an additional client most of the time.
There is also input-leap, if a monitor is present.
On the server/remote side, x2go is also worth a mention.
Sunshine and moonlight. Or just ssh if it’s for administrative tasks.
ssh
OP is used to Windows Remote Desktop SSH is a bit far from that, but still a good option
Also
ssh -Xis nice.Will that still be supported with Wayland?
Good question.
Seems like
waypipeis needed for Wayland. https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/9/html/getting_started_with_the_gnome_desktop_environment/remotely-accessing-an-individual-application-wayland_getting-started-with-the-gnome-desktop-environment
I’ve had good experiences with Rustdesk. The client is open-source and the no-cost server components (ID and Relay servers) are self-hostable. The remote server works on X11 and Windows. I use this script to run XFCE+Rustdesk in a headless session:
export SERVERNUM=69 export SCREEN_SIZE='-screen 0 2560x1440x24' export DISPLAY=":${SERVERNUM}" export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11 xvfb-run --server-num="${SERVERNUM}" --server-args "${SCREEN_SIZE}" startxfce4 & disown sleep 1 flatpak run com.rustdesk.RustDesk & disownSunshine + Moonlight is also a good choice. I have Sunshine installed on a box at home and use Tailscale to connect to it from the Moonlight client. At 1440p 60 FPS it has no visible compression artifacts and responsive enough for gaming.
RDP (the same protocol Windows Remote Desktop uses) works fine on Linux. I’d suggest investigating why that suddenly stopped working for you.
For what it’s worth Xrdp seems to work well on Linux for enabling a RDP Remote Desktop server… I suspect you are / were(?) already using Xrdp and just need to figure out why it stopped working.
Yes I was using xrdp, it is still installed and windows rdp can find it and connect. But once that happens, the applications crashes and shuts down…
That’s weird, maybe an update broke something? What I would maybe do is uninstall Xrdp (and maybe remove/rename the old config files just in case), then re-install and configure it. From there if it’s still not working try to see what’s showing up in the log files maybe.
I did notice that Xrdp requires some extra configuration to work properly with Linux Mint Cinnamon, you apparently need to create a .xsession file in the home folder of whichever user(s) you’re trying to remote into. I’m not on Linux Mint myself but maybe searching around will give you some tips e.g. this seems like a good rundown https://gist.github.com/ParkWardRR/2ab9b5d41bbaceca8471d591755a1898
EDIT: You probably already know this from using it before but for RDP on Linux you’d need to remote into a user that is not already logged in… it’s not like in Windows when you can RDP into any user regardless if they’re already logged in or not.
For what it’s worth Xrdp seems to work well on Linux
Even on Wayland?
Yup, been using Xrdp in a Debian + GNOME Wayland setup without issue.
I’ve also used GNOME’s built in Remote Desktop (RDP) with Wayland. KDE’s own RDP should work with Wayland too but I haven’t tested that one yet.
Nomachine with local & Wireguard access only.
I think Anydesk can be trusted as much as any company. They did notify users when a breach occurred a couple of years ago. By contrast Teamviewer was hacked and blamed their customer’s “password reuse” for years before finally admitting they had a breach. The company cannot be trusted.
I use Anydesk occasionally to help friends but never leave it running if it’s not actively in use.
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