Remote control RE: linux surprises me, what am I not appreciating?

UO14 · 2025-10-14 16:15:26

My first experience with linux was with with a CD which came with a hefty book. There was no gui installer, everything was prepped partitioned copied/installed manually (the vogue seemed to be separate partitions for everything), and there was no gui experience really. Internet access at all was a rarity, and google wasn't yet a thing. It was intriguing, but I had no practical use for it. When I next tried linux it came in a box with several CDs and again a substantial manual (SUSE), internet access still wasn't a given, google had just arrived, but AltaVista was the thing. It now came with a graphical user interface desktop experience: KDE. Again it was intriguing, but I could not do without Windows, which was still useful, and it filled no need.

I continued to return to linux here and there for various needs and distributions. The last time (ubuntu) was a for a specific need, but in the end it didn't stick as I needed both 'console' (in the widows sense) access to the desktop gui, and also headless remote access to the desktop. vnc was a just a poor experience, so I tried rdp, but again the experience of getting it working was torturous, time expensive, and ultimately still poor. I ended up having to maintain two environments for one user, one for remote, and one for the console. It was still a far from perfect in the end. Ultimately, it was better to make do with poorer tools and just fall back to windows to get on with the task.

Since then a new need has arisen and so I return to Linux again. I needed to install linux on bare metal, and so I thought I'd give Arch a go. Well, linux has come a very long way, for many reasons, and too many to go into here. I kept hearing how Arch needs lots of experience, but frankly, if your at all even just a power 'user', and you don't mind or enjoy following guides and documentation, then frankly its actually one of the 'easiest' distributions I've ever used. Because its minimal, then when you do inevitably need to add/customise something, you don't have umpteen things and configurations to unpick first, usually not at all especially well documented if at all, before finally getting it to work work or not all. Furthermore, the documentation for arch is superb and thorough.

It's been a great experience, that is until again I hit the same area, remote access to the GUI experience. For background, I'm using plasma kde.
There is KRDP, but it doesn't run until already logged in, or at least its not intended for anything else. So its of very limited use.
I suppose there is VNC of one flavour or another, but I haven't tried that, it was not great in the past, and I haven't heard that it's moved forward much.
So again I fall back to xrdp, as I tried with ubuntu...
For a start it seems that xrdp isn't able to earn a place in 'extra' for what ever reason.
It seems to be clear that the Arch documentation for xrdp wants to remain quite general.
So far I have tried using xrdp with vnc (tigervnc) as the back end, but so far, I haven't succeeded. I'm getting results, but they are as yet unworkable.
I have yet to try xorgrdp, which I think will be the next thing, that too is Aur, but I've not much optimism that it too isn't going to be a slog to arive at less than ideal results.

Now, yes it might be possible to get it working perfectly but that's not my point, and nor really is 'how' to. It's just while everything else in the linux ecosystem seems to have improved so much, remote access is still so clunky, and this just really surprises me. Remote access must surely be a really valuable and a much desired and much used capability, like 'really' valuable?
Now it might be that remote access has really improved generally, and it just still clunky with Arch, but I doubt that. If it was generally improved I expect that such solutions would have made their way into 'extra' by now. Maybe Wayland is just still that immature and that's the complication, but again remote access just seems so important.

So what am I not appreciating, that atleast explains why things are not just in their current state, but seem to have been this way for a while?

(now it maybe that the answer is... "your trying to use what?! Haven't you heard of 'y'? Everyone is using that method from ubuntu, to RHEL to Mint, to Arch, and I've still got some things to investigate there, but I have my doubts.)

Lone_Wolf · 2025-10-14 19:52:58

You are aware that RDP/RDC are proprietary protocols owned and designed by microsoft ?

What do you need the remote access for ?
If troubleshooting / administering another linux system : use ssh aka Secure Shell

UO14 · 2025-10-14 23:44:31

Thanks. I am aware that RDP was proprietary but that nut has been cracked ages ago. Furthermore, it's not the element that appears to be the source of the problems.
I need access to KDE remotely. A shell is a solution to a different perform.
Perhaps the issue is that it's all RDP causing the complications, but it doesn't come off like that. Oh well i guess it's just a mystery. I guess the dev/maintainer community is just not motivated or attracted to that problem.

seth · 2025-10-15 06:57:45

No idea what nuts you're talking about but RDP is plastered with patents.
IDK for sure but would not be surprised is xrdp isn't in the repos also out of legal concerns.

I need access to KDE remotely. A shell is a solution to a different perform.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

What do you need the remote access for ? If troubleshooting / administering

If you intend to supervise some system, you're looking for VNC rather than RDP anyway and using RDP won't benefit you at all (unless your client system only supports RDP) because the only RDP server is implemented on top of that.
Unlike windows, most linux servers run headless and require no GUI at all, thin clients have historically operated on X11 (because you can forward the X11 session via ssh and just start a remote X11 client to render on the local server) and today largely rely on specific protocols and in doubt http - I've never nor felt the need to run a desktop session on a remote system, but if the WoT in your OP is a hidden question for help, you're probably looking for https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/TigerV … )_sessions - and forget about RDP unless that's your clients only option (though VNC is cross-platform and there're oc windows clients)

Whoracle · 2025-10-15 09:39:26

There's also Sunshine (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/sunshine | Server component) and Moonlight (https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/moonlight-qt/ | Client component). Mainly for gaming, as always highly dependent on your use case.

twelveeighty · 2025-10-15 15:34:25

Using a Windows GUI protocol to remote from a Linux machine to another Linux machine is a flawed design. Additionally, controlling a Linux machine over the network using a DE is inefficient + brittle + insecure and not scalable. The use-case for using a DE is very narrow and in most cases can be replaced by rendering the server's graphical results (if that's the objective) on the client instead of creating a "viewport" to the server's X or Wayland.
Tell us your use-case and why that couldn't be handled using SSH.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-10-14 16:15:26

Remote control RE: linux surprises me, what am I not appreciating?

#2 2025-10-14 19:52:58

Re: Remote control RE: linux surprises me, what am I not appreciating?

#3 2025-10-14 23:44:31

Re: Remote control RE: linux surprises me, what am I not appreciating?

#4 2025-10-15 06:57:45

Re: Remote control RE: linux surprises me, what am I not appreciating?

#5 2025-10-15 09:39:26

Re: Remote control RE: linux surprises me, what am I not appreciating?

#6 2025-10-15 15:34:25

Re: Remote control RE: linux surprises me, what am I not appreciating?

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