13 ms·

FreeRDP 2.0 – A Remote Desktop Protocol implementation

285 points by conductor 7y ago

FullyFunctional 7y ago
I'd encourage freerd.com to be more descriptive on the landing page - the blurb says "RDP Implementation", but it's not clear if it's client, server, or both. As a client, this is only useful to people accessing Windows.
- djrogers 6y ago
  It also doesn’t mention the supported OSs prominently either...
m0zg 6y ago
Microsoft should really consider releasing their official implementation as open source and integrating it with Linux desktop in a way that doesn't suck. Vnc sucks pretty bad. NoMachine sucks a bit less, but doesn't seem to be maintained. RDP doesn't suck at all. I've worked with Windows machines halfway across the globe using it, and while the experience wasn't super snappy, it was usable. I also spent thousands of hours working from home using RDP when I was at MS in 00's. With sufficient network bandwidth, in full screen, the experience is indistinguishable from a local desktop.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  Microsoft has released[1] the RDP documentation, which is what FreeRDP is based on[2]. Open-sourcing their implementation would not help, since it's deeply integrated into the OS. I was hoping Wayland would take remote desktop seriously when I heard about the effort, but sadly that was not to be. [1]: http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/ [2]: https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/wiki/Reference-Documentation https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/wiki/Reference-Documentat...
  - indolering 6y ago
    How would you propose Wayland take remote desktop seriously?
    - magicalhippo 6y ago
      By taking it into consideration from day 1, as a decent remote desktop experience requires tight integration.
      - m0zg 6y ago
        Wayland doesn't work properly even without these considerations though. Horrible tearing in Chrome when watching video, at least on my machine, crazy high CPU usage too. I had to switch back to X.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
Changelog: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/2.0.0/ChangeLog https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/2.0.0/Chan...
wayneftw 7y ago
I'm so glad that the FreeRDP client on Linux works really well. It's one of the pieces of software that made transitioning away from Windows much more convenient as I continue to work with Windows systems and sometimes, tools. The RDP server is one thing I miss from Windows though. On Linux I haven't found anything nearly as good. It's really surprising to me too - given that a good visual remoting tool allows for such ease in cross platform living. I suppose there are a lot of reasons for this, but primarily I guess that most Unix natives would consider SSH to be good enough.
- dijit 7y ago
  Not sure if you're aware, so I apologise if you are: 1) X11 is already a network aware display system, so it wouldn't take too much work to run remote. 2) SSH has built-in X11 forwarding with `ssh -X <host>`, when you run commands they will be rendered locally. On OSX this needs an X11 server (XQuartz) to work properly. 3) There are "better" remote desktop solutions like "parsec"[0] which run on Windows and Linux. They offer much lower latency and higher bit-depth. They're designed for games. (obviously this comes at the price of bandwidth). [0]: https://parsecgaming.com/features/ https://parsecgaming.com/features/
  - FullyFunctional 7y ago
    Isn't RDP more akin to VNC than X11? You can connected and reconnect to existing sessions, something you cannot do with X11 (but can with VNC). I have never heard of Parsec before but it's not immediately obvious that it's an alternative to RDP (Desktop usage)
    - paulirwin 6y ago
      As far as connecting to existing sessions goes, yes, RDP is closer to VNC to X11. In that respect only though: you can't also simultaneously use the same session locally unlike with VNC. However, as far as the actual implementation goes, RDP is closer to X11 than VNC. VNC is basically a remote frame buffer, akin to streaming video. This makes it very cross platform friendly, but also IMO feels very slow, even on a local network. RDP is closer to X11 in that it sends display directives (AFAIK, please correct me if I'm wrong) so that it can draw them on the client as they would be drawn on the server. Think sending a "draw button" command rather than sending an image of pixels that are how the button would be rendered. This, combined with compression, helps make RDP feel very fast compared to VNC, and can be used very well even over the internet, unlike X11. I connect to RDP servers in Azure all the time and sometimes forget I'm not working locally, while with VNC you're always aware that it's not as performant. I really wish there was something like RDP as a server for Linux. (OP seems to be a client AFAICT?) Given Microsoft's recent investment in Linux, maybe this will happen soon?
dang 7y ago
We changed the URL from https://www.freerdp.com/ https://www.freerdp.com/ to the home page since this project doesn't seem to have been discussed on HN before.
Thaxll 6y ago
What's the performance vs Remina?
- elteto 6y ago
  I found it to be somewhat faster when comparing between the packages my distro had, but YMMV. What did make a _noticeable_ difference was to download the FreeRDP sources and compile everything statically. That blew Remmina out of the water. I did not do the same for Remmina though, so the comparison is not fair.
- zootboy 6y ago
  Remmina uses freerdp as its RDP library.
- kbumsik 6y ago
  Remmina is a just GUI frontend. You can choose a RDP backend between FreeRDP and RDesktop.
the_arun 6y ago
I have used NoMachine. Liked the experience while connecting to Ubuntu from Windows client. With client running on Mac & server on Linux - it is Okay experience - not great. Is FreeRDP 2.0 better? Will try it anyways.
ape4 6y ago
Is there a nice way to get around NAT?
- mulmen 6y ago
  A VPN? I would not expose any kind of remote desktop protocol to the internet.
- fulafel 6y ago
  IPv6.
1996 6y ago
Unlike others here, I am non plussed by an open source implementation of an old format mostly used by non free operating systems. It doesn't add much. I would be far more interested by a GPU accelerated server, with a focus on low latency, like parsec: something more or less equivalent, with native support for wayland or xorg would be much more interesting. This would superset the uses of RDP: you can use parsec for remote desktops, just like you can with RDP except it's smoother and more responsive. But you can also use games with parsec, something you can't do with RDP, and everything else that requires low latency.
- vlunkr 6y ago
  Many people, myself included, use this software to connect to remote windows machines that we have no control over. It's incredibly valuable, you're just not the target audience apparently.
selfishgene 6y ago
Has anyone been able to get FreeRDP's Thincast Workstation (based on VirtualBox) product to work? http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation I know it's still in beta, but it was originally released two years ago and I'm still not able to boot ubuntu's mini.iso installation media in this graphics-optimized version of VirtualBox. If anyone has been able to test Thincast workstation performance, can they compare it to a Hyper-V linux virtual machine connected to X410 through VSOCK: https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-linux-virtual-machines-via-vsock/ https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-lin...
FpUser 6y ago
I was using (well trying to use) FreeRDP/XRDP for a while to work with my multiple Linux machines from the Windows client. Soon I've discovered that it was not XRDP working for me but the other way around. I replaced it with NoMachine and and never looked back since. Now I am somewhat curious but frankly from a practical standpoint I have very little motivation to stop doing what I am doing just to check this new one. It will disrupt my routine for the sake of completely unknown outcome which in the best case will let me have what I already have now. And in the worst case - the opposite of sky is the limit. This is not to discourage developers but just to show what missed opportunity might cost should there be more people like myself.
- stuaxo 6y ago
  Same, Nomachine has a GUI, and importantly discovery of clients on the network. The performance is a lot better than VNC. In theory I could setup VirtualGL and TigerVNC, but it seems like a lot of work, and time I just don't have. Other clients could do well to see how easy NoMachine makes things.
nycticorax 6y ago
All the Linux remote desktop server solutions are bad enough over a WAN that I typically VPN into my office, then RDC from my home Windows box into my office Windows box, then ssh -X from there into my office Linux box. It's kinda crazy, but it works better than anything else I've found, and I've tried almost all the options mentioned here. I wish there was a better way, but I don't think there is (for me)...
- pfranz 6y ago
  Really? I agree "a new remote desktop" makes me suspicious about usage over WAN because most all suck. I didn't have great luck with Windows Remote Desktop, either. We went with TurboVNC/VirtualGL on the server and recommended, I think, TurboVNC on the client (via ssh). I used macOS Screen Sharing.app because it wasn't Java and was more comfortable to use IMHO (with things like screen scaling and fullscreen). Most other VNC clients performed significantly worse. I usually ran the desktop around 1440x900. This seemed to be the best setup with high latency and low bandwidth situations. We had people spanning the furthest time zone.
  - stuaxo 6y ago
    I've never got this working, but it seems like the best combo, is there an easy GUI way to connect to VirtualGL / TurboVNC and tutorial to do the server side, it didn't look straightforward when I looked a few years ago.
    - pfranz 6y ago
      Sorry. Our sysadmin had set it up. We relied on OpenGL applications and had multiple users, so we weren't using :0. I thought I got it working (sans OpenGL/VirtualGL) by just installing the rpm, then each user would run `vncserver -geometry 1440x900 :89` (their per-user port) to launch the server, then connect via the client. We did have issues periodically. Mostly because the workstations were mostly not interactive, but if someone would plugin or unplug a monitor X would change configuration on the next reboot. Or when we had multiple GPUs we'd tweak things. I wish I kept better notes.
therealmarv 6y ago
Install process is not straight forward in Ubuntu and it is installed in a not usual binary search path (look at /opt). No complain against the software (it's excellent) but I think this is a small bug for usability.
Rapzid 6y ago
I was severely disappointed when it turned out the Hyper-V Linux enhanced session relied on RDP and the experience was pretty bad. Was hoping for something from Microsoft that was a step up from VirtualBox and VMWare in every way and particularly the latency department. Maybe this new release of free is a major improvement?
- selfishgene 6y ago
  Have you tried FreeRDP's Thincast Workstation (based on VirtualBox)? http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation I know it's still in beta, but it was originally released two years ago and I'm still not able to boot ubuntu's mini.iso installation media in this graphics-optimized version of VirtualBox. Interested also if anyone who has been able to get Thincast workstation to boot linux can compare it to a Hyper-V linux virtual machine connected to X410 through VSOCK: https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-lin.. https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-lin.... VSOCK could improve RDP latency since it should be faster than a localhost network socket.

285 points by conductor 7y ago

I'd encourage freerd.com to be more descriptive on the landing page - the blurb says "RDP Implementation", but it's not clear if it's client, server, or both. As a client, this is only useful to people accessing Windows.

djrogers 6y ago
It also doesn’t mention the supported OSs prominently either...

m0zg 6y ago

Microsoft should really consider releasing their official implementation as open source and integrating it with Linux desktop in a way that doesn't suck. Vnc sucks pretty bad. NoMachine sucks a bit less, but doesn't seem to be maintained. RDP doesn't suck at all. I've worked with Windows machines halfway across the globe using it, and while the experience wasn't super snappy, it was usable. I also spent thousands of hours working from home using RDP when I was at MS in 00's. With sufficient network bandwidth, in full screen, the experience is indistinguishable from a local desktop.

magicalhippo 6y ago
Microsoft has released[1] the RDP documentation, which is what FreeRDP is based on[2]. Open-sourcing their implementation would not help, since it's deeply integrated into the OS. I was hoping Wayland would take remote desktop seriously when I heard about the effort, but sadly that was not to be. [1]: http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/ [2]: https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/wiki/Reference-Documentation https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/wiki/Reference-Documentat...
- indolering 6y ago
  How would you propose Wayland take remote desktop seriously?
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    By taking it into consideration from day 1, as a decent remote desktop experience requires tight integration.
    - m0zg 6y ago
      Wayland doesn't work properly even without these considerations though. Horrible tearing in Chrome when watching video, at least on my machine, crazy high CPU usage too. I had to switch back to X.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

Changelog: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/2.0.0/ChangeLog https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/2.0.0/Chan...

wayneftw 7y ago

I'm so glad that the FreeRDP client on Linux works really well. It's one of the pieces of software that made transitioning away from Windows much more convenient as I continue to work with Windows systems and sometimes, tools. The RDP server is one thing I miss from Windows though. On Linux I haven't found anything nearly as good. It's really surprising to me too - given that a good visual remoting tool allows for such ease in cross platform living. I suppose there are a lot of reasons for this, but primarily I guess that most Unix natives would consider SSH to be good enough.

dijit 7y ago
Not sure if you're aware, so I apologise if you are: 1) X11 is already a network aware display system, so it wouldn't take too much work to run remote. 2) SSH has built-in X11 forwarding with `ssh -X <host>`, when you run commands they will be rendered locally. On OSX this needs an X11 server (XQuartz) to work properly. 3) There are "better" remote desktop solutions like "parsec"[0] which run on Windows and Linux. They offer much lower latency and higher bit-depth. They're designed for games. (obviously this comes at the price of bandwidth). [0]: https://parsecgaming.com/features/ https://parsecgaming.com/features/
- FullyFunctional 7y ago
  Isn't RDP more akin to VNC than X11? You can connected and reconnect to existing sessions, something you cannot do with X11 (but can with VNC). I have never heard of Parsec before but it's not immediately obvious that it's an alternative to RDP (Desktop usage)
  - paulirwin 6y ago
    As far as connecting to existing sessions goes, yes, RDP is closer to VNC to X11. In that respect only though: you can't also simultaneously use the same session locally unlike with VNC. However, as far as the actual implementation goes, RDP is closer to X11 than VNC. VNC is basically a remote frame buffer, akin to streaming video. This makes it very cross platform friendly, but also IMO feels very slow, even on a local network. RDP is closer to X11 in that it sends display directives (AFAIK, please correct me if I'm wrong) so that it can draw them on the client as they would be drawn on the server. Think sending a "draw button" command rather than sending an image of pixels that are how the button would be rendered. This, combined with compression, helps make RDP feel very fast compared to VNC, and can be used very well even over the internet, unlike X11. I connect to RDP servers in Azure all the time and sometimes forget I'm not working locally, while with VNC you're always aware that it's not as performant. I really wish there was something like RDP as a server for Linux. (OP seems to be a client AFAICT?) Given Microsoft's recent investment in Linux, maybe this will happen soon?

dang 7y ago

We changed the URL from https://www.freerdp.com/ https://www.freerdp.com/ to the home page since this project doesn't seem to have been discussed on HN before.

Thaxll 6y ago

What's the performance vs Remina?

elteto 6y ago
I found it to be somewhat faster when comparing between the packages my distro had, but YMMV. What did make a _noticeable_ difference was to download the FreeRDP sources and compile everything statically. That blew Remmina out of the water. I did not do the same for Remmina though, so the comparison is not fair.
zootboy 6y ago
Remmina uses freerdp as its RDP library.
kbumsik 6y ago
Remmina is a just GUI frontend. You can choose a RDP backend between FreeRDP and RDesktop.

the_arun 6y ago

I have used NoMachine. Liked the experience while connecting to Ubuntu from Windows client. With client running on Mac & server on Linux - it is Okay experience - not great. Is FreeRDP 2.0 better? Will try it anyways.

ape4 6y ago

Is there a nice way to get around NAT?

mulmen 6y ago
A VPN? I would not expose any kind of remote desktop protocol to the internet.
fulafel 6y ago
IPv6.

1996 6y ago

Unlike others here, I am non plussed by an open source implementation of an old format mostly used by non free operating systems. It doesn't add much. I would be far more interested by a GPU accelerated server, with a focus on low latency, like parsec: something more or less equivalent, with native support for wayland or xorg would be much more interesting. This would superset the uses of RDP: you can use parsec for remote desktops, just like you can with RDP except it's smoother and more responsive. But you can also use games with parsec, something you can't do with RDP, and everything else that requires low latency.

vlunkr 6y ago
Many people, myself included, use this software to connect to remote windows machines that we have no control over. It's incredibly valuable, you're just not the target audience apparently.

selfishgene 6y ago

Has anyone been able to get FreeRDP's Thincast Workstation (based on VirtualBox) product to work? http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation I know it's still in beta, but it was originally released two years ago and I'm still not able to boot ubuntu's mini.iso installation media in this graphics-optimized version of VirtualBox. If anyone has been able to test Thincast workstation performance, can they compare it to a Hyper-V linux virtual machine connected to X410 through VSOCK: https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-linux-virtual-machines-via-vsock/ https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-lin...

FpUser 6y ago

I was using (well trying to use) FreeRDP/XRDP for a while to work with my multiple Linux machines from the Windows client. Soon I've discovered that it was not XRDP working for me but the other way around. I replaced it with NoMachine and and never looked back since. Now I am somewhat curious but frankly from a practical standpoint I have very little motivation to stop doing what I am doing just to check this new one. It will disrupt my routine for the sake of completely unknown outcome which in the best case will let me have what I already have now. And in the worst case - the opposite of sky is the limit. This is not to discourage developers but just to show what missed opportunity might cost should there be more people like myself.

stuaxo 6y ago
Same, Nomachine has a GUI, and importantly discovery of clients on the network. The performance is a lot better than VNC. In theory I could setup VirtualGL and TigerVNC, but it seems like a lot of work, and time I just don't have. Other clients could do well to see how easy NoMachine makes things.

nycticorax 6y ago

All the Linux remote desktop server solutions are bad enough over a WAN that I typically VPN into my office, then RDC from my home Windows box into my office Windows box, then ssh -X from there into my office Linux box. It's kinda crazy, but it works better than anything else I've found, and I've tried almost all the options mentioned here. I wish there was a better way, but I don't think there is (for me)...

pfranz 6y ago
Really? I agree "a new remote desktop" makes me suspicious about usage over WAN because most all suck. I didn't have great luck with Windows Remote Desktop, either. We went with TurboVNC/VirtualGL on the server and recommended, I think, TurboVNC on the client (via ssh). I used macOS Screen Sharing.app because it wasn't Java and was more comfortable to use IMHO (with things like screen scaling and fullscreen). Most other VNC clients performed significantly worse. I usually ran the desktop around 1440x900. This seemed to be the best setup with high latency and low bandwidth situations. We had people spanning the furthest time zone.
- stuaxo 6y ago
  I've never got this working, but it seems like the best combo, is there an easy GUI way to connect to VirtualGL / TurboVNC and tutorial to do the server side, it didn't look straightforward when I looked a few years ago.
  - pfranz 6y ago
    Sorry. Our sysadmin had set it up. We relied on OpenGL applications and had multiple users, so we weren't using :0. I thought I got it working (sans OpenGL/VirtualGL) by just installing the rpm, then each user would run `vncserver -geometry 1440x900 :89` (their per-user port) to launch the server, then connect via the client. We did have issues periodically. Mostly because the workstations were mostly not interactive, but if someone would plugin or unplug a monitor X would change configuration on the next reboot. Or when we had multiple GPUs we'd tweak things. I wish I kept better notes.

therealmarv 6y ago

Install process is not straight forward in Ubuntu and it is installed in a not usual binary search path (look at /opt). No complain against the software (it's excellent) but I think this is a small bug for usability.

Rapzid 6y ago

I was severely disappointed when it turned out the Hyper-V Linux enhanced session relied on RDP and the experience was pretty bad. Was hoping for something from Microsoft that was a step up from VirtualBox and VMWare in every way and particularly the latency department. Maybe this new release of free is a major improvement?

selfishgene 6y ago
Have you tried FreeRDP's Thincast Workstation (based on VirtualBox)? http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation I know it's still in beta, but it was originally released two years ago and I'm still not able to boot ubuntu's mini.iso installation media in this graphics-optimized version of VirtualBox. Interested also if anyone who has been able to get Thincast workstation to boot linux can compare it to a Hyper-V linux virtual machine connected to X410 through VSOCK: https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-lin.. https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-lin.... VSOCK could improve RDP latency since it should be faster than a localhost network socket.