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Fedora recently ditched VNC support in their installer for RDP. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-server/installation/interactive-remote/ https://docs

by nailer 2y ago

Fedora recently ditched VNC support in their installer for RDP. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-server/installation/interactive-remote/ https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-server/installat... (which may be a Wayland think, I just know more about Fedora than general Linux distros). RDP seems to have taken the zeitgeist in the open source world.

IshKebab 2y ago
It is a lot more advanced than VNC, and the open source world doesn't seem to have come up with any alternatives.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  RustDesk is intended to be a TeamViewer alternative but works quite well as a simple remote desktop application: https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk
  - raphinou 2y ago
    I thought to have seen some negative comments about its security, anyone knowing more about it?
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      I haven't heard anything negative about it, and I can only find one CVE: https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2024-25140/ https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2024-25140/ Personally, I'm not exposing my installations to the Internet, so I feel relatively secure regardless.
    - Arrowmaster 2y ago
      They installed a root certificate on windows computers that could have been used to MITM all traffic. I personally had issues with the project years before that when I tried to install their Linux .deb and they ran `pip install` as root in the pre install script inside the .deb. That caused so much havoc to clean up I was pissed at them for years. Now that idiocy is blocked by default in current versions of pip.
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Yeah it just seemed like a slightly suss project to me. I did use it initially but uninstalled it after the Chinese root certificate incident. I wonder if anyone has forked it...
- rrdharan 2y ago
  I don't quite understand what happened to SPICE. I know Red Hat deprecated it, and I can't tell if it was ever fully opensourced or not? https://www.spice-space.org/developers.html https://www.spice-space.org/developers.html
  - spookie 2y ago
    My theory is Wayland happened. As SPICE doesn't work that well through it. I would assume it's another case of a "niche" the Wayland protocol didn't account for, however.
    - jeroenhd 2y ago
      Interesting theory. Any idea on why SPICE wouldn't work well through it? I don't have recall running into any issues with it. A more Wayland-oriented remote desktop protocol would probably make for an even better VNC alternative, but I don't really know why SPICE never got the uptake it deserved.
    - timewizard 2y ago
      Wayland. Move slow and break everything.
  - Nextgrid 2y ago
    Wasn't aware SPICE was deprecated. However, I think it addresses a different use-case than RDP: SPICE is primarily designed for accessing virtual machines by connecting to their hypervisor. Thus it's designed to operate without VM guest awareness nor cooperation, going purely from a framebuffer. This approach is fundamentally limited in terms of performance/responsiveness, as you're ultimately just trying to "guess" what's happening and apply best-effort techniques to speed things up, falling back to just using a video stream. A proper remote desktop solution like RDP on Windows works in cooperation with the OS's GUI subsystem in a way that makes the RDP server aware of the GUI events, so it doesn't have to guess, and can offload compositing and some 2D operations directly to the client, rather than sending rendered bitmaps. Thus it didn't catch on because it focuses on a narrow use-case nobody should be using except in emergency/break-glass situations (you should instead be remoting into the VM directly, for reasons explained above), and even for such situations, it didn't offer anything substantial over VNC, except everyone and their dog has a VNC client by now, but good luck finding a functional SPICE client for anything but Linux.
j16sdiz 2y ago
I thought RDP is highly coupled with GDI. How could it translate native wayland to GDI?
- p_ing 2y ago
  That is one of the extensions, in theory others could be built. RemoteFX is an extension as is the (more normal today) Desktop Composition Extension. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-rdpedc/869980fb-29ba-426d-8361-f7b6d287d2ea https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocol...
  - awakecoding 2y ago
    The Desktop Composition extension was never used in practice, check the date on the spec - the last update was in 2017. I don't know the whole story behind the scenes but the feature got pulled early.
    - tracker1 2y ago
      Possibly a patent threat.
- awakecoding 2y ago
  The RDP GDI messages are from RDP6, graphical messages have changed many times over in the versions of RDP that followed. Would you be surprised to learn that WSLg uses a FreeRDP server hooked to a Wayland compositor running in the Linux guest, and that the RDP client in the Windows host is MSRDC in a special RemoteApp mode? In theory someone could build a similar RDP server using IronRDP
johnisgood 2y ago
Well, I personally never had any issues with X11vnc ever since its existence. I have used it a long time ago though.
int_19h 2y ago
This probably has something to do with Gnome on Wayland having RDP server support as a standard feature: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop

by nailer 2y ago

IshKebab 2y ago

It is a lot more advanced than VNC, and the open source world doesn't seem to have come up with any alternatives.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
RustDesk is intended to be a TeamViewer alternative but works quite well as a simple remote desktop application: https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk
- raphinou 2y ago
  I thought to have seen some negative comments about its security, anyone knowing more about it?
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    I haven't heard anything negative about it, and I can only find one CVE: https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2024-25140/ https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2024-25140/ Personally, I'm not exposing my installations to the Internet, so I feel relatively secure regardless.
  - Arrowmaster 2y ago
    They installed a root certificate on windows computers that could have been used to MITM all traffic. I personally had issues with the project years before that when I tried to install their Linux .deb and they ran `pip install` as root in the pre install script inside the .deb. That caused so much havoc to clean up I was pissed at them for years. Now that idiocy is blocked by default in current versions of pip.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Yeah it just seemed like a slightly suss project to me. I did use it initially but uninstalled it after the Chinese root certificate incident. I wonder if anyone has forked it...
rrdharan 2y ago
I don't quite understand what happened to SPICE. I know Red Hat deprecated it, and I can't tell if it was ever fully opensourced or not? https://www.spice-space.org/developers.html https://www.spice-space.org/developers.html
- spookie 2y ago
  My theory is Wayland happened. As SPICE doesn't work that well through it. I would assume it's another case of a "niche" the Wayland protocol didn't account for, however.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    Interesting theory. Any idea on why SPICE wouldn't work well through it? I don't have recall running into any issues with it. A more Wayland-oriented remote desktop protocol would probably make for an even better VNC alternative, but I don't really know why SPICE never got the uptake it deserved.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    Wayland. Move slow and break everything.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  Wasn't aware SPICE was deprecated. However, I think it addresses a different use-case than RDP: SPICE is primarily designed for accessing virtual machines by connecting to their hypervisor. Thus it's designed to operate without VM guest awareness nor cooperation, going purely from a framebuffer. This approach is fundamentally limited in terms of performance/responsiveness, as you're ultimately just trying to "guess" what's happening and apply best-effort techniques to speed things up, falling back to just using a video stream. A proper remote desktop solution like RDP on Windows works in cooperation with the OS's GUI subsystem in a way that makes the RDP server aware of the GUI events, so it doesn't have to guess, and can offload compositing and some 2D operations directly to the client, rather than sending rendered bitmaps. Thus it didn't catch on because it focuses on a narrow use-case nobody should be using except in emergency/break-glass situations (you should instead be remoting into the VM directly, for reasons explained above), and even for such situations, it didn't offer anything substantial over VNC, except everyone and their dog has a VNC client by now, but good luck finding a functional SPICE client for anything but Linux.

j16sdiz 2y ago

I thought RDP is highly coupled with GDI. How could it translate native wayland to GDI?

p_ing 2y ago
That is one of the extensions, in theory others could be built. RemoteFX is an extension as is the (more normal today) Desktop Composition Extension. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-rdpedc/869980fb-29ba-426d-8361-f7b6d287d2ea https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocol...
- awakecoding 2y ago
  The Desktop Composition extension was never used in practice, check the date on the spec - the last update was in 2017. I don't know the whole story behind the scenes but the feature got pulled early.
  - tracker1 2y ago
    Possibly a patent threat.
awakecoding 2y ago
The RDP GDI messages are from RDP6, graphical messages have changed many times over in the versions of RDP that followed. Would you be surprised to learn that WSLg uses a FreeRDP server hooked to a Wayland compositor running in the Linux guest, and that the RDP client in the Windows host is MSRDC in a special RemoteApp mode? In theory someone could build a similar RDP server using IronRDP

johnisgood 2y ago

Well, I personally never had any issues with X11vnc ever since its existence. I have used it a long time ago though.

int_19h 2y ago

This probably has something to do with Gnome on Wayland having RDP server support as a standard feature: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop