[gentoo-user] Re: Easiest remote desktop for Windows client?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2022-08-24, Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@×××××.com> wrote:

> What's the easiest way to get a remote desktop working for a Gentoo
> server with a Windows 10 client machine?
>
> A lot of sources recommend xrdb since Windows comes with a native RDP
> client. But there is no ebuild for xrdb in portage -- though I found
> one in an overlay.

The xrdp-0.9.19 and xorgxrdp-0.2.18-r1 ebuilds in the ACE overlay
installed with no fuss at all:

    https://data.gpo.zugaina.org/ace/net-misc/xrdp/

** And they didn't pull in any new dependencies! **

The /etc/init.d/xrdp openrc script works as expected.

I didn't have a ~/.xinitrc, so I got the default X11 "xclock and three
xterms" when I connected remotely from the Windows machine.

So I created a ~/.xinitrc file with this in it:

    #!/bin/bash
    exec openbox --startup /home/grante/.config/openbox/autostart-xrdb

My normal local desktop startup commands are in /home/grante/.config/openbox/autostart,
but I wanted a remote session to start up a little differently, so I
created a second openbox autostart file for use by xrdp sessions.

Everything works fine except for openbox menu items that start urxvt
with options to set the title and exec an application. Those menu
entries appear to do nothing. The menu entry to start a "plain" urxvt
works fine. When I manually execute urxvt with title/exec options in a
remote session, that works fine too.  So I'm a little baffled why
those commands don't work from the openbox menu for a remote session.

Of course, there's still the inescapable brokenness of apps like
Chrome and Firefox which insist only one instance per user can run at
any time. Apparently the concept of multiple GUI sessions running
simultaneously on one machine is beyond the grasp of some people...

--
Grant