[sigh] I remember when modal windows were the only imaginable disruption to your work. The irony is, at least they had a clear purpose — and a close button.
Use Linux. Windows is over if you want it.
Use Linux. Windows is over if you want it.
I love being able to remote into my home PC and experience near lag-free use via RDP. I've tried the Gnome and KDE implementations but they aren't that great as a user who just wants to connect and use the PC.
I found the gnome one confusing, as it had two options. One had to be logged into locally and unlocked first. The other didn't I believe but there was some other gotcha. Maybe having signed in once but then locked the session. I do remember not being able to RDP from a fresh reboot which made me think the machine failed to boot. KDE's implementation I think also suffered from having to log in locally first.
I've made use of Sunshine and Moonlight for now. It works, but it's meant more for gaming. No copy and paste, more bandwidth or more cpu/gpu cycles, etc.
Though, I do have to hazard a guess that Wayland will be a bit of a hiccup. Remove graphical desktops were niche enough that a lot of the good solutions for them in the past have not been high on people's radars.
No screen tearing is also nice.
Only for about 20 years for graphical desktop and 34 years for console.
Console options: Telnet, Rlogin, SSH.
Graphical options: X forwarding, VNC, X2Go.
> Using Wayland.
Why?
""Open-Source Low-Latency Accelerated Linux WebRTC HTML5 Remote Desktop Streaming Platform for Self-Hosting, Containers, Kubernetes, or Cloud/HPC""
The GNOME Remote Desktop offering seems fine but yeah, the specific use case you have of wanting to be able to login does require an additional system wide login step which is a little unusual. LightDM and others work similarly; it's basically a vnc password to keep rabble off the actual login screen. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop
For the many many wlroots Wayland's, wayvnc is quite good. Their first FAQ question is about running over ssh, on a headless backend. https://github.com/any1/wayvnc/blob/master/FAQ.md#faq
Personally I think sunshine & moonlight is 100% the way to go. There is one way client->host copy paste. Agreed that more would be better, but there are good independent tools for shuffling data around, lots of ways to fill in the gap. The bandwidth is very tuneable but yes 0.5mbit/s is going to be pretty rough. But sunshine will gladly use hardware encoding, that's very low latency, and that is basically free: there's dedicated encoders on any vaguely modern hardware. Being able to get av1 or HEVC for basically free feels about as good as it gets to me. Moonlight client of course will also decode in hardware too. Remote desktop-ing has never been so low impact to CPU or GPU, and the ability to do absolutely anything (watch videos even) with such high smoothness and low latency is stunning. 100% recommend sunshine+moonlight. Afaik, no way to remote login over it though?
You can also give RustDesk a shot for gui access.
Horrendous install process, just clicking no to hundreds of "features" I don't want, interspersed by patronising, uninformative messages like "chillax, we're just setting things up for you". And when you're done, you're bombarded by notifications, visual clutter. My poor eight-year-old nephew had a stock-ticker on the task bar! A totally overwhelming, ugly and hostile interface.
On the old laptop, I installed Windows to do the firmware update (a thousand curses on manufacturers that don't provide the option to flash from Linux), and moved straight to install EndeavorOS.
The experience was night and day. Simple, clear and informative install with clear, well-explained choices. Fast. On completion, I've got a clean, empty DE, ready to be tweaked to my liking. Oh, and it's free, as is all the software I'm using on it.
This is Arch, there are memes about Arch being hard. Unbelievable how much easier and more pleasant getting Arch up and running is than Windows these days. Microsoft have crippled their UX with horrendous junk.
The only reason anyone really needs Windows is if they're running one of about four pieces of software for professional reasons.
Win11 is peak enshitification, such a big opening for Linux at the moment. Non-technical parent needs a computer, give them Linux; child, ditto. All most users need is a browser these days. No reason most people need that Microsoft shit in their lives.
Otherwise, get the whatever's the cheapest MacBook Air or Mac Mini and move on with your life.
I use Linux on my desktop in my basement as that is the "fun" computer meant for entertainment and some coding. I have a Macbook for a lot of "serious" work because if I am out meeting people I need the software to work the first time I open it and not waste time troubleshooting.
Side note on the comment about reliable sleep/wake...Linux is very good at this, just look at the Steam Deck.
You're not wrong that a cheap mac is an easier solution, but with its own downsides.