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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

I tried Xpra for remote applications some four to five years ago when I migrated from Windows to Linux and needed a Remote Desktop (type) alternative.

I stuck with it for a while in advance of numerous other options, until I found NoMachine - which doesn't do remote applications but does do full remote desktop and has the closest 'feel' to being local-machine than anything other than Windows Remote Desktop.

I (ironically?) dislike Microsoft just that little bit extra for making Remote Desktop so damn good whilst progressively destroying the Windows experience.

I would like to try Xpra again, but I've got a growing list of "I'd like to try that's" that even the top priorities only get small bites taken out of them per week / month - and my current workflow is pretty good.

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NoMachine absolutely does do remote applications. I use it for that every day. Instead of "Create a new virtual desktop", choose "Create a new custom session" and under Application "Run the following command" (the program you want to run) and under Options "Run the command in a floating window".

For remote desktop use cases, I’ve found RustDesk to be pretty good, especially if you can self host the relay: https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk

I especially enjoyed that I can use AV1 for the encoding (better quality even at lower bitrates), being able to switch resolutions easily and also the response times being pretty quick.

Haah.

No need for a relay.

I have a zerotier network for my Machines and it works "locally".

Rock solid. Public network is pretty crummy.

With your zerotier / tailscale, you have not 100% control and no overhead of a relay

I prefer MeshCentral. Not only does it work better, it has way more features. For example, you can browse the remote system's files and use a terminal without having to stream the graphical environment. It also has some Intel ME integration which I haven't really looked into.

RustDesk is easier to get started with though, especially if you're coming from TeamViewer. However I've always been a little wary of RustDesk. The dev is (was? Haven't kept up) anonymous and seems to be some Chinese company. Even ignoring the China ties, I wouldn't trust an anonymous dev with sensitive software like this.

You may want to try x2go. It uses the older NX protocol version 3, while NoMachine is at version 4. It's good enough for my use case, and support remote applications just fine: this is how I use it.

Perhaps it would make you feel a little better to learn that RDP was created from Citrix’s ICA protocol during some cross licensing between the two companies.

I worked on using hardware acceleration to replace parts of the ICA client application’s raster functionality for “thin client” devices a lifetime ago.

NICE DCV is a good alternative if you don't mind paying. I've found the image quality, latency and multi-monitor support to be better than NoMachine. You can get a permanent licence for $180.

https://www.nice-dcv.com

They are owned by Amazon Web Services.

NICE DCV is very solid but its licensing and links to AWS pushed me to write a replacement (it's just NVENC over UDP) one bored weekend... will have to OSS it some day.

There's also RustDesk that looks great but I can't say I've used it yet.

Would love to hear more details and see the code.

I’ve found NICE DCV to be more performant on low end clients (eg chromebooks) maintaining good responsiveness vs RDP.

KRDP Server is getting there. I was able to play Civ VI over it from my Macbook Air with decent fps.

Sadly you first have to login locally in order to use it. Or has that changed yet?

For now yes. There's only 4 people really working on it. But the most difficult part of it was the stream itself with enough performance for video and gaming at a decent fps and I can say that I was able to play civ vi over it so at this point it's the task of cleaning up the way it works.

Never underestimate the amount of work needed for authorization.

xrdp + rdesktop is my current daily driver for this

Xrdp is really good.

I'm amazed by the quantity of different Linux remote desktop solutions covered in this thread. Is the fragmentation a good sign of a healthy ecosystem?

I find xrdp quite slow esp compared to a Windows RDP server. This is with the xrdp that comes with Debian 12. Maybe newer versions are faster.

I'm using the same as you - Debian 12. The only snag I've noticed is that it's pretty easy to make a session crash, at which point you lose the entire desktop.

Most people don’t realize that the stock config uses xvnc instead of xrdp as a back-end and never change that, or try xorgxrdp-glamor to get GPU acceleration.

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