Access your PCs from ANYWHERE with REMOTE DESKTOPS (Linux, Mac, and Windows)

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#remotedesktop #vnc #rdp

How does a remote desktop work? Essentially, it mirrors the contents of one PC onto the display of another PC, either through a dedicated app, a web browser, or the native capabilities of your operating system. There are two primary protocols: RDP, or Remote Desktop Protocol, and VNC, or Virtual Network Computing.

Let's start with KasmVNC. It's open source, free of charge, and you can download the server component from their GitHub page. It's packaged for various Linux distributions including Alpine Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Kali Linux, or Oracle Linux, all for ARM or x86 CPUs. It doesn’t have a server component for Windows or macOS though, so it’s Linux only.

Once the server component is installed on the PC you want to remote into, you'll need to use the command line. Simply run 'vncserver', and you'll be prompted to create a user that you’ll use to login to your remote desktop.

Then, add your user to the ssl-cert group with the command displayed in your terminal.

Then go to your client PC, open a web browser, type the IP address of the server followed by the port number indicated when you ran the 'vncserver' command.

You'll be asked to enter your login and password for the user you created, then you're in. You'll get a nice sidebar with options to tailor performance, frame rate, compression, and more. And if you want to really get into the details, there’s a YAML configuration file you can edit either in /etc/kasmvnc, or you can have your own config file for your user in .vnc.

If you want to remote into a Linux PC, most desktop environments have settings that let you enable remote desktop. In GNOME, for example, you go to the sharing page, then 'remote desktop', and enable remote control. KDE has the 'krfb' app that allows you to share your desktop.
On the client side, all you need is either an RDP or VNC client. The 'Connections' app in GNOME and 'KRDC' in KDE are probably the best integrated apps, or you can use 'Remmina'.

"If you want to remote into a Windows PC, your best bet is the in-built Remote Desktop Protocol or RDP. To enable it on Windows 11 Pro (home doesn't support it), simply open the Settings app, click 'System', then 'Remote Desktop', and toggle it on. A pop-up will ask for confirmation, just click 'Confirm', and voila - you're done with the server-side setup.

On the client, you'll need an RDP client. For Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, you have Microsoft's Remote Desktop app. And for Linux users, there's Remmina - a free, open source tool available on any distro through Flathub.

If your server is a Mac, the process is quite similar. First, open System Settings, navigate to General, and then to the 'Sharing' page. Here, enable 'Remote Management'.

Next up, you need a VNC client on the client PC. Just input the IP address and the username of your Mac's user. However, one thing to keep in mind is that performance can vary. Since the resolution on Macs can be quite high, you might find it's not as fast as you'd like.

Some virtual machine clients can let you remote into a VM, for example, in Virtualbox, you have a remote display tab in the “display settings” of your VM. Now to make sure this works, you’ll need to install the Virtualbox Extension pack, which you can download for free from Virtualbox’s website.

Then, in Virtualbox, you can click the tools tab, the the little list button, and then extensions. Here, click install, then select the extension pack, and you’re done. Now you can enable remote display in the VML’s Display settings.

[abubakrakram]

I wish remote desktop was a good enough solution for me to just keep a thin client laptop and a powerful desktop, but it’s not. Having the power on hand is just easier.

[christiansilvermoon]

Excellent video! I'm a little surprised you didn't mention Barrier. It's not a Remote Desktop software, but it *does* let you use your keyboard and mouse across multiple computers running Windows, Mac, or Linux. It's really handy if you have multiple systems at your desk

[thetee]

At home in a LAN environment, I'm using sunshine and moonlight combo which also works very well for gaming. Very similar to the also pretty good steamlink streaming.

[gwgux]

Remmina is extremely useful IMO. It's also good for saving a lot of SSH connections as well. :)

The only thing I would add though is don't do this directly over the Internet. Tunnel it through a VPN/SSH or something else. Again, don't do any of this directly over the Internet. All the remote desktop protocols get hacked all the time so tunnel it through a VPN, SSH, etc.

[Hobbitstomper]

Parsec is the only one that actually makes it feel like you're actually on a local computer. All other remote desktop tools are a joke in comparison (in terms of performance and screen quality).

[Little-bird-told-me]

*Thanks Nick* This was very succinct and polished introduction to _remote desktop_ a topic many don't bother to venture into, because it seems -hard- . Definitely gonna give it a try !

[pialdas]

I want to mention for those who use QEMU instead of VirtualBox, you can also remote into your VMs using the Spice protocol. It's just like VNC although a little bit better since it supports audio. Virt-Manager has a front end for managing this or you can edit the XML files directly to get it working. The only limitation is that 3D acceleration has to be disabled for the VM you're trying to remote into for this to work.

[michadybczak]

Thanks. Very useful video. Saved it on the list to access it whenever I need refreshing on the topic.

[thexepe]

Just what I needed! Just yesterday I was researching this very topic

[kuhluhOG]

In case of RDP it's not just better compression.
If possible (which especially today is less and less the case) it even sends over the commands to render the GUI instead of rendering it and then sending over a picture.

[newguyiswinning]

Been a few years but for remote gaming, parsec/parsecui or whatever worked really well. Can host on your gaming pc and stream it

[johnyferreira]

You missed to inform that this only works if you’re on the same network. Remote machines will need port forwarding.

[SirRFI]

If you use multiple devices in the same place, USB hub with switch option is good solution - it switches which computer all the USB devices are connected to, without need to replug everything or have double the amount of peripherals. KVM also exist, though due to the "monitor" part they can be pricey.

[Whatupdays]

I use Rustdesk and host my own server on my Unraid server. I will use Parsec to play games from my Windows VM.

[mylinuxforwork]

I’m using an RDP connection to a Windows 11 pro virtual machine on KVM. I’m passing through a second GPU to the VM and access it via freerdp! Advantages: Fully integrated into my Qtile window manager plus all Windows 11 effects available. This gives me the best performance and quality so far.

[albertopajuelomontes]

for gaming you can use moonlight with sunshine server, no latency. Can be used as remote desktop too

[unclerubo]

I miss FreeNX. I remember remoting to my OpenSUSE PC from my Windows machine at work *BACK IN 2005-2006* and performance was astonishingly good. I wonder why it went away.
If only someone made something like that for Wayland...

[KalosLikesComputers]

I absolutely love SSH. My server doesn't even have a desktop environment. But I understand that most people need one.

[marcc]

I have Linux Mint XFCE 21.3 on my media PC, but I can't seem to find the settings for allowing for the desktop sharing of my media pc to my main Mint PC running Cinnamon 21.3 and using Remmina.Should I try putting KasmVNC on my Media PC to access from my Main Mint PC? Does KasmVNC allow for transfer of files back and forth between linux machines?

[roccociccone]

One more tip, if you’re using a kvm + qemu vm with a gpu pass through looking glass might be worth a look.