FreeRDP 2.0 – A Remote Desktop Protocol implementation

https://www.freerdp.com/

by conductor • 6 years ago

285 122 6 years ago

Changelog: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/2.0.0/Chan...

wayneftw• 6 years ago

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• 6 years ago

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/

FullyFunctional2• 6 years ago

Isn't RDP more akin to VNC than X11? You can connected and reconnect to existing sessions, something you cannot do with X11 (but can with VNC).

I have never heard of Parsec before but it's not immediately obvious that it's an alternative to RDP (Desktop usage)

loeg• 6 years ago

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.

brimstedt• 6 years ago

X11 works remote, but to my knowledge only to start new applications.

Connect to an existing session and just "continue where you were" is not easy though there might be unmaintained solutions.

If you use ssh forwarding and for some reason gets disconnected, the application dies.

I'd love for you to tell me I'm wrong :-)

The way rdp works on windows is the only thing where I think windows is superior.

Vnc, TeamViewer and similar are not remotely close and they will leave your remote screen open for anyone to see.

GranPC• 6 years ago

Parsec for Linux is only a client; you can't share a Linux desktop using Parsec.

tssva• 6 years ago

Along with better performance and reliability than X11 RDP allows redirection of sound, folders, USB devices, and can present a virtual GPU which allows access to the physical GPU of the remote end.

makkesk8• 6 years ago

parsec does not support multiple monitors which is a deal breaker in many use cases, so far windows rdp is the best free solution for at least windows -> windows remoting.

yjftsjthsd-h2• 6 years ago

I'm growing to like xpra for remoting graphical applications, especially with the HTML5 client.

yyyk2• 6 years ago

The krdc & xfreerdp combination is terrible. I don't know which program is at fault (probably krdc), but it's not working well at all.

There's the occasional random disconnection to right-click rarely leading to disconnection to a case where xfreerdp asks for a password in the terminal but I don't see it in krdc.

blinkingled• 6 years ago

Yep, krdc needs a lot of love - I just use the freerdp command line program and that works great.

Vogtinator• 6 years ago

I've used krdc with rdp to connect to windows clients often and always without any issues. Maybe it's a regression introduced only recently?

jchw• 6 years ago

Options for Wayland are a bit less antiquated. Here’s a couple.

If you are ever using a wlroots based Wayland compositor, then wayvnc becomes an option for RDP. (Note: haven’t personally used this.)

https://github.com/any1/wayvnc

Waypipe offers network transparency to Wayland, where by you can run applications across the network. I believe this should work with roughly any compositor.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe/

techntoke• 6 years ago

There was an RDP backed in wlroots, but it was recently removed in favor of wayvnc. My guess is that it works as well as RDP. You can still connect to other RDP instances just fine using FreeRDP.

nycticorax3• 6 years ago

The bottom of the Waypipe README says: "This is usable, but still somewhat unstable right now".

cpach• 6 years ago

When I used X2go a couple of years ago I found it to work quite well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X2Go

rlkf4• 6 years ago

I find X2Go to be a very nice Linux remote desktop solution, more or less on par with MS-RDP on Windows. The only thing I couldn't get to work was continuing a local session remotely (disconnecting and later reconnecting to a remote session works fine). It is packaged in most mainline distributions.

stinos• 6 years ago

more or less on par with MS-RDP on Windows

That's surprising. I tried X2Go a couple of times on multiple machines (always logging in from Windows to Unbuntu 18.04 if that matters, on a local network) and it was horrible. At least a crash a day, couldn't get numeric keypad keys to work, slow. Not sure if I did anything wrong or just had bad luck.. And those are just the basic features. To get on par with RDP it should also do multiple screens properly (i.e. not one big screen, it's not 2000 anymore), drive/audio/... sharing and so on. But I never got to trying that, went back to VNC. Which also has problems but at least it allows me to do work.

Unfortunately the OP is about right (in my experience, for the things I do): if the connection allows it remote desktop should really be like you're sitting in front of the physical machine. RDP does that for me, on the same level SSH/Mosh does that for terminal stuff. I'm not sure what is so hard to get right to also get something equivalent on Linux, so maybe it's really the lack of interest?

dboreham• 6 years ago

+1 for X2go. The only solution I've found that didn't mess up scaling on 3,4k screens.

dekhn2• 6 years ago

I run xrdp on Ubuntu and connect to it from a windows machine using the Remote Desktop client. It has some restrictions- and setup issues (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/xrdp) but I use it daily to drive a remote CNC machine's host.

_coveredInBees4• 6 years ago

Have you gotten it working with just those steps? Every single tutorial we have tried on our work machines have resulted in failure with Ubuntu 18.04. I can usually get to a login prompt but then logging in just gives me a black screen, or other times the login is always rejected.

VNC works, but is so painfully antiquated in comparison to RDP. It guzzles way too much bandwidth even if all you have is a blinking cursor on screen. I really wish there was a solid RDP server for Ubuntu. I'm quite surprised at the state of things on this front.

chajath• 6 years ago

Chrome Remote Desktop is a pretty performant and hassle-free option

vinzf2• 6 years ago

There is actually an awesome RDP server (called ogon project) based on FreeRDP available:

https://github.com/ogon-project/ogon

sandreas2• 6 years ago

Looks interesting... thank you. Are you using it in production?

rcxdude• 6 years ago

There's a mess of different VNC implementations with wildly varying speed and quality. TurboVNC is probably the best one I've found, it feels pretty similar to RDP in terms of performance (even without setting up their 3d acceleration stuff).

hedora• 6 years ago

I had slightly better luck with tigervnc a few years back. (TurboVNC was a close #2 if I remember right.)

It was able to play full screen youtube on a RPi 3 over local wifi. :-)

azalemeth• 6 years ago

Although proprietary, I find Thinlinc Just Works and the server is free for less than 6 simultaneous connections and supports opengl natively in applications (and is based on TurboVNC iirc). It's very much a drop-in replacement. Clients are on all OSes. They give money upstream.

didibus4• 6 years ago

Highly recommend ThinLinc, it's simply the best in class. I don't know why it isn't more widely known.

eikenberry• 6 years ago

I'd guess most Unix natives consider SSH to be superior to RDP. SSH give you shell access which is a better interface for working with remote systems than a GUI.

cheez• 6 years ago

x11vnc is what I use

toohotatopic• 6 years ago

What do you need and expect? I have never needed more than VNC offers, but I also don't play games on a remote computer or view videos over that connection.

biot• 6 years ago

RDP is more suited to text as it renders the screen pixel perfect. VNC, on the other hand, converts the screen into a lossy compressed video stream which is why it’s often slow and fuzzy until the image stabilizes. Night and day difference.

SubiculumCode• 6 years ago

A number of reasons actually. If you're trying to create a multi-user VNC environment on a remote server the displays do not always render correctly certain applications particularly those requiring 3D components. It can be quite frustrating. Moreover not all keyboard keys are recognized in certain applications. The single user version of VNC, i.e. classic VNC, works well, however it does actually show your remote session on the server computer screen and yes, as best I can tell, the server must have a monitor.

I've had about enough of the compromises I've had to make to make my remote VNC sessions work and mostly have opted to run virtual instances of Linux on my local desktop then SSHFD mount a drive remotely but this is such a pain or can be especially in some applications some research applications which can vary results depending on operating system version and kernel libraries.

I never experienced these issues with Windows remote desktop and this is very frustrating as a Linux user.

yokohummer7• 6 years ago

It's strange nobody mentioned NX (NoMachine). When I tried it ~10 years ago, it was much faster than VNC, nearly identical to RDP. Why isn't it more popular?

zerkten• 6 years ago

When I tried it last year it was a pretty horrible experience because it installed client and server on Windows and macOS when I just wanted the client. I had to go in and kill some services for the server part. Having to do stuff like that for security reasons is a bit of a turn off.

The actual performance of NX was good, so I'll give them that. I think other people having licencing concerns, but I'm fine with it.

rlkf4• 6 years ago

NX was fine in the 3.5.x series, but the client is wonkish from 4.x (and out?). X2Go is based on the same (open-source) underlaying library, and seems to be better. At least in my opinion, and maybe in others here too since nobody apparently mention NX anymore.

didibus4• 6 years ago

Even better than NX is ThinLinc, much more reliable, faster connections and handle dynamic resolution resizing.

u801e• 6 years ago

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.

Have you tried xpra[1]? I haven't tried forwarding the entire desktop, but I have done multiple individual applications with sharing enabled. There are some issues with different resolutions between the host and guest machine, but it works relatively well.

[1] https://xpra.org/

nineteen9992• 6 years ago

On Linux I haven't found anything nearly as good.

Xrdp on the server side works pretty well for us once you get it set up correctly.

SaltySolomon2• 6 years ago

Idk, I set up one last week and no matter the tunning I did it didn't work at all, like screen tearing and extermly low frame rates.

Bnshsysjab2• 6 years ago

I generally use X11 forwarding over ssh provided I trust the host system.

willis936• 6 years ago

This is my go-to on a multi-user system. Otherwise, VNC is good.

o-__-o• 6 years ago

Consider Xnest for untrusted hosts

didibus4• 6 years ago

Use this one: https://www.cendio.com/thinlinc/download

I tried them all, and this one is awesome! It is actually better then Windows RDP. Fast, reliable, secure, and can handle all resolutions and allow you to dynamically resize the screen share. Seriously! Free to use for small user groups and home users for free, with a maximum of 5 concurrent users.

Thank me later ;)

Bnshsysjab2• 6 years ago

Weird question, how do sysadmins normally administer windows? Rdp? Psexec? Something else?

SaltySolomon2• 6 years ago

Mostly RDP, many things (still) require a GUI, and Windows Server Core is something relativly new and has some issues because not everything is exposed to shell.

itprofessional42• 6 years ago

XRDP (http://xrdp.org/) seems to be a good alternative. It works really well for us for our cloud VMs.

FullyFunctional2• 6 years ago

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• 6 years ago

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

dang• 6 years ago

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

Thaxll• 6 years ago

What's the performance vs Remina?

elteto• 6 years ago

I found it to be somewhat faster when comparing between the packages my distro had, but YMMV.

What did make a _noticeable_ difference was to download the FreeRDP sources and compile everything statically. That blew Remmina out of the water. I did not do the same for Remmina though, so the comparison is not fair.

zootboy• 6 years ago

Remmina uses freerdp as its RDP library.

kbumsik3• 6 years ago

Remmina is a just GUI frontend. You can choose a RDP backend between FreeRDP and RDesktop.

the_arun• 6 years ago

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.

m0zg2• 6 years ago

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.

magicalhippo5• 6 years ago

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/

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

indolering• 6 years ago

How would you propose Wayland take remote desktop seriously?

ape4• 6 years ago

Is there a nice way to get around NAT?

mulmen• 6 years ago

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

fulafel• 6 years ago

IPv6.

1996• 6 years ago

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• 6 years ago

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.

selfishgene2• 6 years ago

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

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...

FpUser• 6 years ago

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.

stuaxo4• 6 years ago

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.

nycticorax3• 6 years ago

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)...

pfranz2• 6 years ago

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.

stuaxo4• 6 years ago

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.

kbumsik3• 6 years ago

The OP sounds crazy but it really works for me too. Try RDP on windows. It even works so well over a mobile hotspot!

nycticorax3• 6 years ago

Well, it's been a while, but the last time I tried VNC it was much, much slower than RDP. Also, (and I haven't really thought deeply about why this is) I much prefer "remote desktop" solutions (like RDC) to "screen sharing" solutions (like VNC, TeamViewer, AnyDesk) for day-to-day work. (That having been said, I love TeamViewer for helping my parents with their computer issues. But luckily I don't have to do that too often.) My ideal is something like ssh, but, you know, with graphics. So I should be able to login with my usual credentials, and not have to set a special uber-password that can hypothetically allow someone to connect to an ongoing root session (like VNC does). Bonus points if it's installed by default and I don't really have to configure the server. Windows RDP does all of this.

kbumsik3• 6 years ago

You are not alone. I am doing it too. RDP on Windows is far superior than VNC in overall.

If you don't care about X11 security at all (e.g. LAN, but be careful!) you can set $DISPLAY in the ssh session without -X option. I found it unencrypted X11 is a way faster than ssh -X forwarding.

therealmarv• 6 years ago

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.

Rapzid• 6 years ago

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?

selfishgene2• 6 years ago

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

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....

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

FreeRDP 2.0 – A Remote Desktop Protocol implementation

Related Stories