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Comment by aidenn0 | Hacker News Reader

Wayland is missing one thing still for me. Perhaps someone can tell me there is a way to do this:

1. ssh into a machine with a running session

2. start (something) that lets me remotely connect to it

Right now I have two working solutions for X11 (x11vnc, freerdp-shadow) but zero for Wayland. I think this is intentional because the venn diagram of remote-access-tools and malware has a large intersection, but it's very useful too!

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I've had good luck with Ubuntu 25.10's builtin remote desktop RDP server. I think it's gnome remote desktop, but I'm not certain.

https://github.com/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop

I will build or buy an IP-based kvm that plugs into my hdmi port and has passthrough for the local monitor before I use GNOME.

I used GNOME for many years, but nearly every UX decision they have made in the past 20 years has been the polar opposite of my desires. I have come to the conclusion that the developers in the GNOME project don't want me using their software and I'm happy to oblige them.

I’m a pro user with over two decades of experience, I don’t use Gnome all the time (I prefer Sway these days), but I’m all-in for having a nice DE that would embrace regular people with its simplicity. IMO Gnome does that very well. Yet, I am, as a pro-user can use that almost as good as I use my sway desktop. At home, our shared guest room computer runs default Fedora, and I don’t feel any limitations with it (it has almost none of my configs), and can do most of my work when I’m up to it. The only real difference is when I want to spend like a whole day working with it. An hour or two, no real difference.

Saying that, why won’t you just use the DE targeted at you, as a pro user? With Gnome, I rather afraid they might mess the simplicity at some point and start doing features features features for the sake of them. See KDE Plasma with their settings. I used it since KDE2, and while I rather like it, I am still getting lost in all the bells and whistles. They are too many, and I’ve been around for a really long time.

> a nice DE that would embrace regular people

Then you want something that directly copies Windows. Gnome doesn't do that; it very much does its own thing, which confuses regular people who typically just want an unenshittified Windows.

I don’t agree you have to copy Windows. I agree it’s nice to copy it to lure those who touched no other system and know only Windows. But actually, it’s good to have just simple and usable interface, and people would learn it no problem. There are not many things to learn after all. Gnome does that. Also, it’s very good as a simple macOS replacement. Even simpler than macOS itself. And when I install Gnome, I advert it as ‘very similar to macOS’ (good) ‘but without need to buy their expensive hardware’ (also good). And sometimes I say it’s simpler too (also good). Yes, there are situations when I’d like to have a 1-to-1 (visually) for cases when I want people to not notice they are using not Windows. But actually having something with just a simple interface is more valuable. For a Windows copycat, I use KDE, as it’s somewhat similar, more or so. I know there are ‘more Windows-like shells’ but I just don’t like them personally. Other systems, actually change a lot, including Windows itself. So that’s not an issue in my opinion.

For RDP, you've got KRDP and gnome-remote-desktop.

That "with a running session" bit greatly helps here. While GDM allows you to have remote login and headless sessions [1], with SDDM you're locked out for the moment. There's plans to turn SDDM into a KDE-powered, more featured plasma-login-manager with KRDP integration, but no concrete development yet [2].

[1]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop

[2]: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-login-manager

Last time I tried krdp, it didn't fit my needs. I needed to have already started krdp locally if I want to connect remotely. Neither x11vnc nor freerdp-shadow have that limitation.

It is possible to start it on-demand via the command-line. That is how krdp is developed and tested. You will need to pre-authorize krdp to the portal system, though.

That's documented here: https://develop.kde.org/docs/administration/portal-permissio...

Hah, that actually works, thanks!

Is it possible to do the permission-set remotely?

If you can shell in, I don't see why not? It's a command-line thing. It's intended to also be usable for things like Ansible. If it doesn't work, please file bug reports!

Since Plasma 6.1 (june 2024) you get a system settings module where you can enable KRDP to run at login.

https://quantumproductions.info/articles/2024-06/krdp-plasma...

(I assumed being logged in is what you meant by having "a running session".)

KDE Plasma offers two options:

1. KRdp (preferred): a RDP server for KDE Plasma.

2. KRfb: a VNC server for KDE Plasma.

Both should be able to be configured to support your use-case. If they can't, please file bugs!

There is VNC server for wayland like wayvnc.

RustDesk might do the job, but I haven't used it on Linux, so I can't tell you for sure.

It works for me, and I see little difference with AnyDesk I used before. However, I’m not a frequent user, just a very occasional one to troubleshoot some of elderly friends, parents, etc. I’d love to have my own relay for it, but I never managed to find my time to do that.

Isn't that wayvnc?

If that really meets my needs, that will pull me away from KDE to a wlroots based compositor. I'll try it later, thanks.

KRDP: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/krdp

But it needs a logged-in session, you can't get access to the login manager.

I want to connect to a logged-in session; I can't get krdp to let me do it without me locally granting permissions though.

They fixed that. I can definitely connect remotely in an unattended way as long as I'm logged in locally.

These might have something to do with it:

https://develop.kde.org/docs/administration/portal-permissio...

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/krdp/-/merge_requests/102

wayvnc works for wlroots-based Wayland compositors, sadly not all Wayland compositors are wlroots-based

Well, yes, the answer to basically any "can I do foo in Wayland" is "as long as you're on compositor bar or baz" because it was built in a way that guarantees fragmentation. There isn't a single way to take a screenshot, of course remote desktop is fragmented. But wayvnc is a good answer to the question, even including that caveat.

you could do this with waypipe

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