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Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

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Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#21

Post by algorithm_dk »

Buy a Steam Link and a raspberry pi, and two usb eth adapters, create a ZeroTier network and configure the pi (openwrt) to get internet from one of the adapters and share both the internet connection and the zerotier connection over the second adapter. Configure the zerotier network on your computer and set ul Steam In-House streaming. Then you can take the pi and steam link anywhere, plug a mouse, keyboard and screen, and use your computer. I get 60fps at 1080p and no noticeable input lag over the internet (work to home).

If you use a nvidia card enable "force composition pipeline". There is also a Steam Link app for Android, and ZT client as well, works great.

Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#22

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

stephengillie wrote: post #3

Were Windows involved at both ends, you could start with RDP. It has many low bandwidth solutions. It uses local assets on the client to reduce data sent by the server. It's been the primary method of remotely administrating Windows servers for over 20 years. And some distros support the protocol now too.

My experiences with RDP on Linux have been truly excellent. I often spend all day working on a client's Windows servers from my Ubuntu machine on a 4K display and the experience is no different to running Windows natively. I use XFreeRDP FWIW.

Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#23

Post by flarg »

Give Chrome Remote Desktop a go - it's pretty convenient and I've used extensively in the past. My experience has been similar to yours - wanting to use a cheap laptop when i'm out but access all my data and software on my home setup. Am pretty sure that Windows RDC and Citrix we're built by the same team and they work at the OS level - definitely the best performance at the machine level - but windows only.

TBH it probably is not going to work as well as you hope due to simple latency and less-than-simple packet routing issues, over and above the capabilities of the actual software. You would probably gain more by spending some money on one decent laptop and a standby desktop - and sync'ing them with dropbox & imap. I know this is not what you asked so feel free to ignore.

Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#24

Post by ddon »

Started using Jump Desktop[1], works pretty good. Windows client is free, the rest of clients you have to pay for, but this is one time fee, which is much better than TeamViewer and others.

Another option is to use built-in windows and mac desktop sharing options, but you need to run somewhere in the cloud a VPS for $2-3 a month for reverse SSH tunnel, and then you can connect to your machines from anywhere.

[1]: https://jumpdesktop.com/

Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#26

Post by neomindryan »

XRDP server for Linux can be configured to send sound, so I’ve been using that setup for a cloud dev box. In a pinch, it works reasonably well from an Asus c101pa chromebook plugged into a 4K monitor.

Edit: forgot to mention that the latest versions of the official RDP client for macOS, iOS, and Android are pretty good and “just work”.

Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#27

Post by icebraining »

algorithm_dk wrote: post #21

Buy a Steam Link and a raspberry pi, and two usb eth adapters, create a ZeroTier network and configure the pi (openwrt) to get internet from one of the adapters and share both the internet connection and the zerotier connection over the second adapter. Configure the zerotier network on your computer and set ul Steam In-House streaming. Then you can take the pi and steam link anywhere, plug a mouse, keyboard and scree…

Do you need the Link? Couldn't you run Steam on the Pi?

Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#28

Post by mahmoudimus »

I tried a ton of solutions, but the one that worked the best for me:

Client: MacOSX with Microsoft Remote Desktop Server: Google Cloud Ubuntu w/ XRDP

I use my mac book to microsoft remote desktop into my server with Xrdp and I use ratpoison as my wm. I can code in intellij quite well!

Hope this helps

Re: Ask HN: Are any remote desktop solutions good enough for full-time use?

#30

Post by walterbell »

bochoh wrote: post #17

If you're able to spin up an Apache Guacamole server I highly recommend it. It has completely changed how I think about remote access to my home network. https://guacamole.apache.org

Does the HTML5 client work well on iOS Safari, e.g. iPad Pro? How well do video and desktop 3D animations (e.g. Aero, Office widgets) work?
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