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Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

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Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#11

Post by pxc »

metadat wrote: post #6

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, whic…

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'.

Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#12

Post by metadat »

pxc wrote: post #11
metadat wrote: post #6

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, whic…

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…

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 :)

Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#14

Post by XorNot »

coryrc wrote: post #10
XorNot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a second crucial element to this: can it lock the local screen while you do this? I did this a whole lot in the lab with Windows - walk away, and log in remotely and monitor my session, then head back in and log back on locally. I never found a way to do this with Linux that just restores the session the way Windows seems able to. Instead all I ever found was "the remote screen is unlocked and the cursor is m…

AFAIK the only way is to always run a remote X server (i.e. Xvnc) and always connect to it, even when sitting at the local computer. Maybe you could do something with dpms but that leaves the keyboard active still.

Yeah see this has always been where I think Windows dominates Linux.

Going from local to RDP to local feels seamless and secure. I wish we could get that experience on Linux.

Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#15

Post by prmoustache »

metadat wrote: post #6

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, whic…

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.

Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#16

Post by prmoustache »

shmerl wrote: post #7
metadat wrote: post #6

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, whic…

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.

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

Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#18

Post by billpg »

"We've built X. It allows you to run graphical applications over a network."

"Here's an optimization for when the X display is the same machine as the process."

"We've built Wayland. We all run applications on the same machine as the display and X gets in the way."

"We'd like to run applications from machines over the internet."

"We've built Wprs. It allows you to run graphical applications over a network."

That's the circle of life.....

Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#19

Post by kaba0 »

billpg wrote: post #18

"We've built X. It allows you to run graphical applications over a network." "Here's an optimization for when the X display is the same machine as the process." "We've built Wayland. We all run applications on the same machine as the display and X gets in the way." "We'd like to run applications from machines over the internet." "We've built Wprs. It allows you to run graphical applications over a network." That's th…

X being network transparent hasn’t been true for decades — no one uses xmotif and similar GUI libs, they just grab a buffer and paint stuff themselves, making the X protocol an inefficient format to carry bitmaps around.

Local-first is the correct approach as the end computers are significantly more powerful than 30 years ago. Plus, we can transport bitmaps far more efficiently with compression, so it’s quite obviously an improvement on every metric, it is pretty shortsighted to note it down as circular development.

Re: Wprs – rootless remote desktop for Wayland (and X11, via XWayland) applications

#20

Post by npteljes »

What I never understood is how Spice is not elevated to a separate product. It does a fantastic job handling the graphical, audio, and peripheral connections to VMs, so how come there isn't a Spice server that I can just install to whatever Linux system and remote to it with the Spice clients that are already there?

Also, I'd like to plug Sunshine - I think it works on Wayland, and from the tests I did it does a fantastic job on a local network to make a desktop usable, even from an Android device. The downside is that whatever happens on the remote screen, it must happen on the host screen as well, so you can't have the host locked while you do gaming on it for example.

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