
FreeRDP 2.0 – A Remote Desktop Protocol implementation - conductor
https://www.freerdp.com/
======
wayneftw
I'm so glad that the FreeRDP client on Linux works really well. It's one of
the pieces of software that made transitioning away from Windows much more
convenient as I continue to work with Windows systems and sometimes, tools.

The RDP server is one thing I miss from Windows though. On Linux I haven't
found anything nearly as good. It's really surprising to me too - given that a
good visual remoting tool allows for such ease in cross platform living.

I suppose there are a lot of reasons for this, but primarily I guess that most
Unix natives would consider SSH to be good enough.

~~~
dijit
Not sure if you're aware, so I apologise if you are:

1) X11 is already a network aware display system, so it wouldn't take too much
work to run remote.

2) SSH has built-in X11 forwarding with `ssh -X <host>`, when you run commands
they will be rendered locally. On OSX this needs an X11 server (XQuartz) to
work properly.

3) There are "better" remote desktop solutions like "parsec"[0] which run on
Windows and Linux. They offer much lower latency and higher bit-depth. They're
designed for games. (obviously this comes at the price of bandwidth).

[0]: [https://parsecgaming.com/features/](https://parsecgaming.com/features/)

~~~
loeg
X11 is network aware, in that is theoretically possible to speak the protocol
over a network. However, anyone considering it should be aware that it is (1)
extremely chatty, (2) extremely synchronous, and (3) extremely latency
sensitive. It only works well on fast local networks. SSH certainly doesn't
make it any faster.

In contrast, RDP and VNC type protocols are screen-replicating designs more
suited to higher latency connections.

Finally, if you're using RDP, I'd suggest Remmina as an client. It's
fantastic.

~~~
hjkgfdfgh
To pile on against X11 over ssh, forwarding on a modern Linux workstation is
spectacularly painful. I recently needed to forward a lightweight gtk app from
one workstation to another over 10gbe and a single switch hop.

With ssh and X forwarding, my local gnome constantly threw up modal dialogs
that the forwarded window was unresponsive, forcing me to keep clicking "Wait"
to dismiss the modal, then quickly interact with the forwarded window before
the next "unresponsive" modal popped up.

~~~
inetknght
Forwarding Firefox over X11 _sometimes_ works. Sometimes Firefox on the remote
machine will try to join the session of your local firefox -- but fail and
then complain that there's Firefox already running. Adding `--new-instance`
helps if Firefox is running in a container and X11 socket file is forwarded to
the container but it doesn't seem to help if X11 is forwarded over SSH.

~~~
jabl
Try '-no-remote'. Or was that '\--no-remote'? Anyway, that's what I've used
for years and years when needing to run firefox over ssh X forwarding.

~~~
inetknght
Firefox is running on the remote, connected to a different X11 session. It is
not running on the local. When I use `firefox --new-session --no-remote` on
the remote, I see a dialog pop up on my local machine stating _Firefox is
already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first
close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system._

~~~
codys
Yes, this is because firefox doesn't allow multiple ff instances to use the
same profile at the same time. You can ask firefox to create a new profile
(`firefox -ProfileManager`) and then use a seperate profile for the remote
instance

------
FullyFunctional
I'd encourage freerd.com to be more descriptive on the landing page - the
blurb says "RDP Implementation", but it's not clear if it's client, server, or
both. As a client, this is only useful to people accessing Windows.

~~~
djrogers
It also doesn’t mention the supported OSs prominently either...

------
nycticorax
All the Linux remote desktop server solutions are bad enough over a WAN that I
typically VPN into my office, then RDC from my home Windows box into my office
Windows box, then ssh -X from there into my office Linux box. It's kinda
crazy, but it works better than anything else I've found, and I've tried
almost all the options mentioned here. I wish there was a better way, but I
don't think there is (for me)...

~~~
pfranz
Really? I agree "a new remote desktop" makes me suspicious about usage over
WAN because most all suck. I didn't have great luck with Windows Remote
Desktop, either. We went with TurboVNC/VirtualGL on the server and
recommended, I think, TurboVNC on the client (via ssh). I used macOS Screen
Sharing.app because it wasn't Java and was more comfortable to use IMHO (with
things like screen scaling and fullscreen). Most other VNC clients performed
significantly worse. I usually ran the desktop around 1440x900.

This seemed to be the best setup with high latency and low bandwidth
situations. We had people spanning the furthest time zone.

~~~
stuaxo
I've never got this working, but it seems like the best combo, is there an
easy GUI way to connect to VirtualGL / TurboVNC and tutorial to do the server
side, it didn't look straightforward when I looked a few years ago.

~~~
pfranz
Sorry. Our sysadmin had set it up. We relied on OpenGL applications and had
multiple users, so we weren't using :0. I _thought_ I got it working (sans
OpenGL/VirtualGL) by just installing the rpm, then each user would run
`vncserver -geometry 1440x900 :89` (their per-user port) to launch the server,
then connect via the client.

We did have issues periodically. Mostly because the workstations were mostly
not interactive, but if someone would plugin or unplug a monitor X would
change configuration on the next reboot. Or when we had multiple GPUs we'd
tweak things. I wish I kept better notes.

------
m0zg
Microsoft should really consider releasing their official implementation as
open source and integrating it with Linux desktop in a way that doesn't suck.
Vnc sucks pretty bad. NoMachine sucks a bit less, but doesn't seem to be
maintained. RDP doesn't suck at all. I've worked with Windows machines halfway
across the globe using it, and while the experience wasn't super snappy, it
was usable. I also spent thousands of hours working from home using RDP when I
was at MS in 00's. With sufficient network bandwidth, in full screen, the
experience is indistinguishable from a local desktop.

~~~
magicalhippo
Microsoft has released[1] the RDP documentation, which is what FreeRDP is
based on[2]. Open-sourcing their implementation would not help, since it's
deeply integrated into the OS.

I was hoping Wayland would take remote desktop seriously when I heard about
the effort, but sadly that was not to be.

[1]:
[http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/](http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/)

[2]: [https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/wiki/Reference-
Documentat...](https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/wiki/Reference-
Documentation)

~~~
indolering
How would you propose Wayland take remote desktop seriously?

~~~
magicalhippo
By taking it into consideration from day 1, as a decent remote desktop
experience requires tight integration.

~~~
m0zg
Wayland doesn't work properly even without these considerations though.
Horrible tearing in Chrome when watching video, at least on my machine, crazy
high CPU usage too. I had to switch back to X.

------
selfishgene
Has anyone been able to get FreeRDP's Thincast Workstation (based on
VirtualBox) product to work?

[http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-
workstation](http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation)

I know it's still in beta, but it was originally released two years ago and
I'm still not able to boot ubuntu's mini.iso installation media in this
graphics-optimized version of VirtualBox.

If anyone has been able to test Thincast workstation performance, can they
compare it to a Hyper-V linux virtual machine connected to X410 through VSOCK:

[https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-
lin...](https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-linux-
virtual-machines-via-vsock/)

------
FpUser
I was using (well trying to use) FreeRDP/XRDP for a while to work with my
multiple Linux machines from the Windows client. Soon I've discovered that it
was not XRDP working for me but the other way around. I replaced it with
NoMachine and and never looked back since.

Now I am somewhat curious but frankly from a practical standpoint I have very
little motivation to stop doing what I am doing just to check this new one. It
will disrupt my routine for the sake of completely unknown outcome which in
the best case will let me have what I already have now. And in the worst case
- the opposite of sky is the limit.

This is not to discourage developers but just to show what missed opportunity
might cost should there be more people like myself.

~~~
stuaxo
Same, Nomachine has a GUI, and importantly discovery of clients on the
network.

The performance is a lot better than VNC.

In theory I could setup VirtualGL and TigerVNC, but it seems like a lot of
work, and time I just don't have.

Other clients could do well to see how easy NoMachine makes things.

------
therealmarv
Install process is not straight forward in Ubuntu and it is installed in a not
usual binary search path (look at /opt). No complain against the software
(it's excellent) but I think this is a small bug for usability.

------
dang
We changed the URL from [https://www.freerdp.com/](https://www.freerdp.com/)
to the home page since this project doesn't seem to have been discussed on HN
before.

------
the_arun
I have used NoMachine. Liked the experience while connecting to Ubuntu from
Windows client. With client running on Mac & server on Linux - it is Okay
experience - not great. Is FreeRDP 2.0 better? Will try it anyways.

------
1996
Unlike others here, I am non plussed by an open source implementation of an
old format mostly used by non free operating systems. It doesn't add much.

I would be far more interested by a GPU accelerated server, with a focus on
low latency, like parsec: something more or less equivalent, with native
support for wayland or xorg would be much more interesting.

This would superset the uses of RDP: you can use parsec for remote desktops,
just like you can with RDP except it's smoother and more responsive.

But you can also use games with parsec, something you can't do with RDP, and
everything else that requires low latency.

~~~
vlunkr
Many people, myself included, use this software to connect to remote windows
machines that we have no control over. It's incredibly valuable, you're just
not the target audience apparently.

------
Thaxll
What's the performance vs Remina?

~~~
zootboy
Remmina uses freerdp as its RDP library.

------
Rapzid
I was severely disappointed when it turned out the Hyper-V Linux enhanced
session relied on RDP and the experience was pretty bad. Was hoping for
something from Microsoft that was a step up from VirtualBox and VMWare in
every way and particularly the latency department. Maybe this new release of
free is a major improvement?

~~~
selfishgene
Have you tried FreeRDP's Thincast Workstation (based on VirtualBox)?

[http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-
workstation](http://www.freerdp.com/2019/02/20/hi-thincast-workstation)

I know it's still in beta, but it was originally released two years ago and
I'm still not able to boot ubuntu's mini.iso installation media in this
graphics-optimized version of VirtualBox.

Interested also if anyone who has been able to get Thincast workstation to
boot linux can compare it to a Hyper-V linux virtual machine connected to X410
through VSOCK:

[https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-
lin...](https://x410.dev/cookbook/hyperv/using-x410-with-hyper-v-lin..).

VSOCK could improve RDP latency since it should be faster than a localhost
network socket.

------
yjftsjthsd-h
Changelog:
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/2.0.0/Chan...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/2.0.0/ChangeLog)

------
ape4
Is there a nice way to get around NAT?

~~~
mulmen
A VPN? I would not expose any kind of remote desktop protocol to the internet.

