[metadat]

Is it better than xrdp though? I found xrdp last week and it's stellar, basically a microsoft-compatible RDP server for Linux. It's a complete solution, no drama and simply amazing.

Every other Linux remote desktop solution I tried was a mess, including Xpra (which was quite involved to even get installed and Debian, and then a letdown, yikes).

I wonder what happens with Wprs when you try to launch virt-manager, which requires root.

[pxc]

For me, definitely yes, because it's rootless. Being able to stream individual windows is an absolutely killer feature. Having to deal with non-native window management is a nightmare, not to mention that it leaves you pulling down more pixels than you need to.

Microsoft has similar functionality but it's gated behind enterprise licenses. I ran Xpra for free when I was a kid and it was magical; many years later I've still never played with Windows' Terminal Services, which is the MS thing that can do rootless IIRC. The way MS gates the necessary windowing features is why to this day you can't do rootless with X2Go or Xpra with normal Windows clients.

Is there special reason the usual GUI PolKit privilege elevation wrappers can't work with a remote X session? I think I used to be able to use kdesu and similar just fine over Xpra. Note that 'rootless' in this context (windowing) means 'without a root window', i.e., without rendering a desktop. It has nothing to do with the usage in projects like podman where 'rootless' means 'not requiring elevated privileges'.

[JackeJR]

Use this to get the functionality without setting up a windows server instance https://github.com/kimmknight/remoteapptool

[philsnow]

Rootless is a good UX especially if you use a tiling window manager locally, because of the cognitive dissonance when one of your tiled windows is a remote fvwm desktop or similar.

Likewise, I think the overwhelming majority of tiling window managers are very keyboard-oriented, so if you use the same or a similar one on a remote rooted vnc session, there will be conflicts between local and remote keybindings unless you're really careful about it. Better to just let the local WM manage everything.

[metadat]

Xpra can also stream rootless single windows, to html5 or other Xpra clients. I found it annoying with a bunch of sharp edges compared to getting a full desktop, though. You must have a different use-case :)

[pxc]

I used to use WinSwitch instead of just plain Xpra, which was nicer. I think it may be unmaintained now.

[prmoustache]

Can xrdp open windows in single apps? This is my main use case for using waypipe (mostly) and xpra. I don't want to show a full desktop nor having to deal with keyboard shortcuts highjack between host and remote.

[shmerl]

I think freerdp is a better option since it has integration with Wayland and even some Wayland DEs are adopting it as remote access feature.

[prmoustache]

From what I understand freerdp is only the client component while xrdp is the server component.

[shmerl]

I think freerdp has both client and server implementation.

[pmontra]

I use remmina for that. It's simpler to configure. For example, it can export a local Linux directory to a Windows machine as a network share without messing with command line options. Not that CLI is bad, far from me, but it saves the time to learn the options for xrdp.

[erremerre]

xrdp on raspberry and ssh bitvise in windows, it is my way to use headless raspberry with graphic interface, and it works absolutely fine.