[reacweb]

I have bought a new desktop this spring. The first thing I did was configuring wake on lan (in France, we have 7 days to cancel a purchase). The second one was to configure ssh and gnome to be able to administer it remotely (line DisallowTCP=false in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf).

I use Linux at work since 1999 and I have used a local display less than 1% of the time.

An application that does not work remotely does not exist for me.

[shakna]

Gnome Remote Desktop [0] is coming, it reached Fedora stable on September 30th, but exposes an API that allows Wayland and Gnome to work together over a remote connection.

For all other uses, you always have xwayland [1], until they adopt the new guy.

[0] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1483499

[1] https://wayland.freedesktop.org/xserver.html

[majewsky]

1% of users with very particular requirements should not hold back the experience of the other 99%.

[reacweb]

Where do you get these numbers ? At work, I do not know where the servers are physically located (some VMware ESX in a closet). Most of my colleagues are in the same situation. Even for windows, many people use terminal services for teleworking. At my previous job in Belgium, it was similar (with a different X server).

I have provided support to Nederlands and Portugal using X11VNC.

Outside work, my wife and my mother are using linux. They call me when they have an issue. Hopefully, I can help them remotely 99% of the time.

IMHO, local desktop is the exception in entreprises.

[majewsky]

I'm not arguing against VNC (which is very much possible with Wayland today). I'm arguing against the legacy cruft that is the X11 network protocol.

[castle-bravo]

Something as fundamental as remote desktop should not be sacrificed for the convenience of a tiny minority of developers.

[majewsky]

It appears we have finally found a volunteer for X11 maintenance.

[collinmanderson]

The lack of a reliable UI is one of the main reasons holding me back from using Ubuntu as my main OS. I wouldn’t mind giving up a native Remote Desktop if it means everything else works better.

[sspiff]

I use my Linux desktop through VNC roughly 50% of the time I'm using it (though, honestly, most of the time I work locally on my laptop).

It's convenient to have access to the desktop session I left running the night before remotely if I want to. I mostly use it to sync files/code I forgot to upload when I quit the last time, or to start a download on Steam or something like that.

I'm sure Wayland will eventually support similar usage, but I understand you reluctance to adopt it until it does.

[bandrami]

Yeah, but VNC is light years behind X11-over-network in so many ways. You have to have a full desktop instead of a single application. It's not integrated with your selection buffers or your session manager or your desktop. It's really a blunt object in comparison to X.

[newscracker]

Which VNC server program do you use? Is it free (as in beer) and does it have a GUI for enabling/disabling and managing the configuration? Several months ago I was looking for one like that but didn’t find anything that was maintained in the recent times. Coming from OS X, where turning on VNC/screen sharing is a simple process in System Preferences, I found it surprising that it was difficult to do that on (Ubuntu) Linux (enabling file sharing with Samba also took a bit of fiddling around).

[shakna]

rdesktop is pretty easy to drop-in and use, with a nice GUI. They focus on Windows remote desktop compatibility instead of VNC, which can make it easier for some.

[ASalazarMX]

I'm lost, why is it relevant that "in France, we have 7 days to cancel a purchase"?

[ziotom78]

I think he was trying to explain why he immediately configured wake on lan, ssh and so on: had he encountered problems in the configuration, he could have returned the item to the store.

[makapuf]

Yup, I also wondered if he was craving ethernet to find the refund website?