Hi! What’s your go to remote desktop setup on Linux? I’m looking for something lightweight that doesn’t lag and ideally supports unattended access, so I can connect without someone having to approve it on the other end every time.
Curious what’s worked best for others and what performance or security tradeoffs you’ve run into.
I think it depends on what Linux OS and how they are configured. I’ve mostly used the RDP protocol so Remmina worked well, then I found issues when connecting to other machines. Setting up Guacamole in a container I found to be a good solution as it has a couple of different protocols to remote into a machine.
+1 remmina
Doesn’t plasma desktop now come with remote access built in
For Ubuntu I have found turning on RDP works well. Curious your use case as I rarely need to use a Linux desktop remotely. My one use case is that I keep an Ubuntu VM that I use for my accounting and financial things. (I keep it turned off and boot just when needed)
RDP into a Windows computer can be set so that it doesn’t require approval from the other end, it’s a GPO setting.
Remmina for the user side seems to work fine when on a Linux workstation, I haven’t looked for a different solution to use to start the remote session. I use XRDP on Linux clients if I need to get in and have desktop, Gnome has a tool for this, and I’m sure KDE does too if I were to look into it.
If you need to get in from the outside world, Guac mentioned above works. You can also run a KASM server and Remmina workspace. You can also Netbird or Wireguard into the network and use local tools on your remote workstation. I have been using KASM on Production, and Netbird on Lab. Doing everything again, I might go with Netbird but it does have some small lag. Guac generating an RDP connection was fast! Fast enough that I could edit video from home on a local workstation, there’s a thread in here with my testing from back around 2020, I think I put the bandwidth requirements for each connection and cpu requirements for the same in that thread. My goal was 16-18 workstations for students to work remotely, internet bandwidth and the price at the time were the things that stopped me.
I use a JetKVM and tailscale. JetKVM has tailscale built in though the configuration is a little tricky there is a wiki to follow. There is also an ATX board you can easliy slot in to remote powerboot. That way I can monitor and run a local AI Ubuntu machine remotely and if the LLM ever needs reloading and I am away I can do that easliy. In your case you’d simply grant access to the JetKVM. And set up a tailscale instance for any third party. I access that local AI (it runs Hermes) both home and away via Hermes fantastic bot integration with telegram. Ya’ll really need to check Hermes out. 
That’s a good angle for cases where you want true out-of-band access rather than just a remote desktop session. A KVM-over-IP plus Tailscale is especially handy when the machine hangs, the display manager breaks, or you need BIOS/boot access — things XRDP/VNC/Remmina won’t help with.
The only thing I’d be cautious about is third-party access: I’d keep Tailscale ACLs tight and only grant access to the specific JetKVM/device they need, not the wider network. For “help me remote into this Linux box” use cases, this is a very solid setup if the extra hardware cost/complexity is acceptable.
I am very interested in this as well.
I really want to switch to linux but i haven’t found a solution that replaces windows RDP for my workflow. My main machine is windows 11, my remote machine is also windows 11.
Main machine has 3 monitors.
Remote machine is a vm.
I use Monitor 0 as my browser for my main machine.
I use monitors 1 & 2 for my RDP session to my remote VM through my main machine.
It works perfect. I can copy / paste between my main machine and the remote vm. It remembers my monitor config. The apps drag between the remote VM screens with no issue.
I have yet to find a linux solution that works this well. I’ve tried vnc, freerdp, xrdp, nomachine, and several others. All of them are either clunky and slow or just dont handle multiple monitors very well at all. If anyone has any input on how to accomplish this i’m open to suggestions. I have tried several different methods. None of them perform as well as RDP on windows. I’d really like to get away from windows as my daily driver but i can’t find a suitable replacement.
If i find any better solutions i’ll add to this topic.
i use thinlinc for my Ubuntu workstation which is a VM and I use 4 monitors with no issues. No lag it works great and its encrypted. ThinLinc downloads | ThinLinc by Cendio
You install the thinlic server on your machine you want to connect to. The installation is a very easy guided setup and then you install the thinlic client to whatever machine you want to connect from whether its a windows, Linux or macos.
The only thing you need to be aware is that if you are logged in locally in your Linux desktop you wont be able to remote connect unless you end your local session first. That’s not a thinlic or rdp quirk, its a Linux session quirk and there is no getting around it. If you only remote connect to the desktop all the time and never login locally like I do then its no problem.
The built in Ubuntu remote RDP works well also but I had issues using more than 2 monitors with Reminna connecting from another Linux machine.
The client performance on ThinLinc seems great. I’ve test driven it with browser windows, a simple email client, and my terminal sessions. The performance seems to be exactly what i was looking for. The multi-monitor support seems a little wonky for my setup, but i’ve put a post in their community forums to try and troubleshoot this.
Thank you for the input. If i can get the multi-monitor problem solved this will do exactly what i was looking for.
If anyone wants to follow my thread about the multi-monitor support issue here’s a link to their community forums & my post (Multi-monitor issue - Community Support - ThinLinc Community Forum)
If I get any good results i’ll post a update here.
Thank you again