5 ms·

> The state of remote desktop is atrocious across every popular platform Complete lie. OP notwithstanding, RDP is simply amazing tech. The state of remote des

by gertop 3y ago

> The state of remote desktop is atrocious across every popular platform Complete lie. OP notwithstanding, RDP is simply amazing tech. The state of remote desktop on Linux has always been pitiful. "Hurr durr u can pipe X over SSH" yup, you can. Now try to play a video or 3D app and watch the disaster. Both work flawlessly with RDP over the same network btw.

metadat 3y ago
Unless you are running the windows box headless, as per TFA.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  I RDP quite often to a headless windows 11 PC (no display connected at all) and I have GP's experience. Everything works perfectly except for random animations on websites. Fortunately, I basically never use the browser when I'm connected remotely. My local display is 4K and I don't use scaling on either side. This experience is while using both a win 11 client and Remmina/FreeRDP on Linux. The remote machine is running a 10th gen i5 with the iGPU.
EvanAnderson 3y ago
I spend a lot of time using RDP over a high latency low bandwidth link. RFP really is very nice. "Modern" websites with animations and fade effects are excruciating over RDP. Productivity software is a joy to use, however.
lomereiter 3y ago
FWIW I had decent success with Xpra on Linux, and it's still being actively developed, e.g. the HTML5 client is considered stable now: https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/ https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/
bashZorina_09 3y ago
Agreed. If I need the best performance out of a Remote Desktop, thankfully there is Sunshine⁽¹⁾ and KASM,⁽²⁾ though it requires significant setup beforehand and bugs do crop up on certain desktops + window protocols. RDP as a regular or quick solution is actually really decent in this respect. (1) https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine (2) https://www.kasmweb.com/community-edition https://www.kasmweb.com/community-edition
- aquir 3y ago
  These are amazing! Thanks for the links
- lucw 3y ago
  KasmVNC has worked great for me to setup development VMs which require GUI work. Kasm Workspaces is an interesting product which allows you to create disposable desktop sessions. I use it to test software, setup a particular configuration, then throw it away.
Teever 3y ago
RDP may be amazing tech but I can't remote into my Windows 10 Home desktop so I think the statement that the state of remote desktop is atrocious across every popular platform is a correct one.
- smackeyacky 3y ago
  Pay for 11 pro. RDP is disabled on the home version
  - Teever 3y ago
    Oh I know that. But I'm talking about the platform as a whole, and due to the fact that windows home does not support RDP that means that the windows platform as a whole is garbage for remote desktop stuff.
    - smackeyacky 3y ago
      I dunno, I use RDP (Remmina) on a daily basis to a remote windows 10 VM and a Windows Server 2019 VM and while I wouldn't want to do anything other than dink around with Outlook and SSMS, it seems pretty good to me. I vastly prefer it over garbage like VNC. Using Tailscale rather than having an open port. In fact RDP has a few neat tricks up it's sleeve including being able to remote mount a file system and copy files (which Remmina supports). Been doing this for a few years now to support a small operation for somebody. It's not terrible.
ladzoppelin 3y ago
To be fair, the state of physical display font/dpi rendering is atrocious on Linux even without the remote/network component so I imagine rdp is also not the best experience.
anthk 3y ago
Gnome supports RDP now. Also, on pure X, Xpra can do that too. And, finally: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VirtualGL https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VirtualGL
RockRobotRock 3y ago
Videos and 3D apps are by no means flawless over RDP unless I missed some incredible advancement recently
- belthesar 3y ago
  Like most thing in Windows, the sauce is buried under layers of Registry tweaks and/or Group Policies, but enabling RemoteFX (released with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1) for RDP enables both h.264/h.265 stream compression, and with additional settings changes to enforce usage of the GPU on the desktop session over RDP, you can get solid 3D acceleration. In this video from Wendell @ Level1Techs, he had 31 virtual desktop instances all running with full GPU acceleration, with RDP as the VDI client software. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ. As another data point, I had game developers remoting into their workstations during Quarantine, using RDP with full graphics acceleration using the same tweaks. What the shinier VDI/Remote Desktop solutions like Sunshine+Moonlight, Parsec, Horizon, Citrix do for you is make all of this easier to set up and use. But as far as capability is concerned, RDP is quite powerful and quite capable, assuming you jump through the hoops to set it up right.
  - RockRobotRock 3y ago
    Thank you for the insight.
c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
I learned about moonlight after subscribing to geforce now. The fact that a remote server can render and stream a game to my laptop with playable levels of latency seems almost magical to me.

by gertop 3y ago

metadat 3y ago

Unless you are running the windows box headless, as per TFA.

vladvasiliu 3y ago
I RDP quite often to a headless windows 11 PC (no display connected at all) and I have GP's experience. Everything works perfectly except for random animations on websites. Fortunately, I basically never use the browser when I'm connected remotely. My local display is 4K and I don't use scaling on either side. This experience is while using both a win 11 client and Remmina/FreeRDP on Linux. The remote machine is running a 10th gen i5 with the iGPU.

EvanAnderson 3y ago

I spend a lot of time using RDP over a high latency low bandwidth link. RFP really is very nice. "Modern" websites with animations and fade effects are excruciating over RDP. Productivity software is a joy to use, however.

lomereiter 3y ago

FWIW I had decent success with Xpra on Linux, and it's still being actively developed, e.g. the HTML5 client is considered stable now: https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/ https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/

bashZorina_09 3y ago

Agreed. If I need the best performance out of a Remote Desktop, thankfully there is Sunshine⁽¹⁾ and KASM,⁽²⁾ though it requires significant setup beforehand and bugs do crop up on certain desktops + window protocols. RDP as a regular or quick solution is actually really decent in this respect. (1) https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine (2) https://www.kasmweb.com/community-edition https://www.kasmweb.com/community-edition

aquir 3y ago
These are amazing! Thanks for the links
lucw 3y ago
KasmVNC has worked great for me to setup development VMs which require GUI work. Kasm Workspaces is an interesting product which allows you to create disposable desktop sessions. I use it to test software, setup a particular configuration, then throw it away.

Teever 3y ago

RDP may be amazing tech but I can't remote into my Windows 10 Home desktop so I think the statement that the state of remote desktop is atrocious across every popular platform is a correct one.

smackeyacky 3y ago
Pay for 11 pro. RDP is disabled on the home version
- Teever 3y ago
  Oh I know that. But I'm talking about the platform as a whole, and due to the fact that windows home does not support RDP that means that the windows platform as a whole is garbage for remote desktop stuff.
  - smackeyacky 3y ago
    I dunno, I use RDP (Remmina) on a daily basis to a remote windows 10 VM and a Windows Server 2019 VM and while I wouldn't want to do anything other than dink around with Outlook and SSMS, it seems pretty good to me. I vastly prefer it over garbage like VNC. Using Tailscale rather than having an open port. In fact RDP has a few neat tricks up it's sleeve including being able to remote mount a file system and copy files (which Remmina supports). Been doing this for a few years now to support a small operation for somebody. It's not terrible.

ladzoppelin 3y ago

To be fair, the state of physical display font/dpi rendering is atrocious on Linux even without the remote/network component so I imagine rdp is also not the best experience.

anthk 3y ago

Gnome supports RDP now. Also, on pure X, Xpra can do that too. And, finally: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VirtualGL https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VirtualGL

RockRobotRock 3y ago

Videos and 3D apps are by no means flawless over RDP unless I missed some incredible advancement recently

belthesar 3y ago
Like most thing in Windows, the sauce is buried under layers of Registry tweaks and/or Group Policies, but enabling RemoteFX (released with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1) for RDP enables both h.264/h.265 stream compression, and with additional settings changes to enforce usage of the GPU on the desktop session over RDP, you can get solid 3D acceleration. In this video from Wendell @ Level1Techs, he had 31 virtual desktop instances all running with full GPU acceleration, with RDP as the VDI client software. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ. As another data point, I had game developers remoting into their workstations during Quarantine, using RDP with full graphics acceleration using the same tweaks. What the shinier VDI/Remote Desktop solutions like Sunshine+Moonlight, Parsec, Horizon, Citrix do for you is make all of this easier to set up and use. But as far as capability is concerned, RDP is quite powerful and quite capable, assuming you jump through the hoops to set it up right.
- RockRobotRock 3y ago
  Thank you for the insight.

c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago

I learned about moonlight after subscribing to geforce now. The fact that a remote server can render and stream a game to my laptop with playable levels of latency seems almost magical to me.