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Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

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Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#441

Post by 0xCMP »

Using something like Coder to provision workspaces and VS Code, SSH, and Wireguard/Tailscale are an absolute dream.

I hope for many in these comments to experience this (especially Coder V2 which is far more flexible in provisioning workspaces) instead of the RDP non-sense that others need to suffer through.

While Parsec is good (and Nvidia GameSteam + Moonlight seems better in my experience) it really isn't good enough to use instead.

Also, honestly, with the advent of things like Tailscale I think it'll become more and more common to have a desktop + a nice, but weaker/cheaper device (Chromebook, MBA, etc.) that you can securely access at your desk or remotely if you want. It's what I personally do with my Desktop and M1 MBA right now.

Also want to add that dedicated servers aren't that expensive by comparison and you can get a lot of value paying like $100/month and using that remotely.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#442

Post by mr_toad »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #204
jonfw wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly, the job of a CISO typically isn't "make the most pragmatic decisions possible to keep our infrastructure secure and running smoothly". In many industries, it's more lke "join as many compliance programs as possible to expand the ability to capture revenue from regulated markets". The CISO didn't make the decision to enforce password rotation- the compliance programs your sales team asked for did

To your point, password rotation is considered an insecure practice because it causes people to append 1, 2, 3, etc to the same password. But I've seen so many companies that still insist on it.

> causes people to append 1, 2, 3, etc to the same password

It’s either that or they write them down. Because people are going to forget a password that changes every month, especially a password that has to comply with the complexity rules.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#443

Post by aleksiy123 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #406
aleksiy123 wrote: post #259

I would have agreed until I started working at Google. Also, you should completely avoid having Remote Desktop and instead use ssh + an editor that works with remote files. At Google we have a custom fork of VSCode running in browser and builds can either be distributed or run on my Linux VM to utilize build cache. I liked it so much I started doing a similar setup for small side projects. Just boot up the Cloud Cons…

What languages does that setup support in Google? JS/TS I guess obviously. How do I replicate it with self-host? What keywords should I google?

All Google supported languages C++, Golang, TS and prob some other ones I'm missing.

Someone else mentioned https://www.gitpod.io/ and they actually have a self host option.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#444

Post by aleksiy123 »

outworlder wrote: post #433
aleksiy123 wrote: post #259

I would have agreed until I started working at Google. Also, you should completely avoid having Remote Desktop and instead use ssh + an editor that works with remote files. At Google we have a custom fork of VSCode running in browser and builds can either be distributed or run on my Linux VM to utilize build cache. I liked it so much I started doing a similar setup for small side projects. Just boot up the Cloud Cons…

> Also, you should completely avoid having Remote Desktop and instead use ssh + an editor that works with remote files. That's kinda stretching the definition of a 'desktop', isn't it? The sort of tasks someone uses Remote Desktop for seldom overlaps with what someone uses SSH for. Also it doesn't seem to be the point of the article: Article: > I'm also going to restrict this discussion to the case of "We run a full…

Yes, somehow I missed this. My mistake.

Though I think it could still work if the applications are built with this in mind. Think Google Docs, Sheets etc as cloud replacements for local Word, Excel.

SSH and Video aren't the only two protocols to interact with a remote machine.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#445

Post by ranger_danger »

aleksiy123 wrote: post #259

I would have agreed until I started working at Google. Also, you should completely avoid having Remote Desktop and instead use ssh + an editor that works with remote files. At Google we have a custom fork of VSCode running in browser and builds can either be distributed or run on my Linux VM to utilize build cache. I liked it so much I started doing a similar setup for small side projects. Just boot up the Cloud Cons…

Why not just use sshfs and edit locally with whatever you want?

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#446

Post by mr_toad »

gw99 wrote: post #11

Yep. Having worked in these environments, this solution is almost always sold to companies that are working around shitty hard to reproduce software stacks, staff trust issues, scale up difficulties and checkbox security cargo cults. The resulting outcome is usually increased staff turnover, increased cost and decreased productivity. Most of this they are having trouble rationalising or acknowledging still. You don't…

> It's notably different if you have a cloud VM running linux and you're connecting to it with VScode or something over SSH. That's borderline acceptable.

Layer 4 beats layer 3 in my experience.

I also find that remote workspaces have advantages that offset the latency and performance issues.

Being able to quickly spin up or clone new workspaces and isolate software dependencies is a huge advantage. It can help a lot when dealing with multiple Python environments or JavaScript dependency trees.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#447

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

aleksiy123 wrote: post #290
aleksiy123 wrote: post #259

I would have agreed until I started working at Google. Also, you should completely avoid having Remote Desktop and instead use ssh + an editor that works with remote files. At Google we have a custom fork of VSCode running in browser and builds can either be distributed or run on my Linux VM to utilize build cache. I liked it so much I started doing a similar setup for small side projects. Just boot up the Cloud Cons…

There is one more point I would like to add to the "less friction to start." This is the killer feature for education. No more do students have to set up their own envs. Figure out PYTHONPATH. No more do educators need to debug installation issues on 3 different OSes. Teachers distribute a pre setup env which they know works for what they are trying to teach. Students go straight into writing code and building things…

Check out Repit.com. They’ve added the ability to add dependencies. Having an easy way to hack on some Java with Maven dependencies already installed is pretty great.

I think this is possible using GitHub Codespaces as well…if you have a Java project with a Maven POM, the deps in the POM will get loaded at runtime.

I haven’t tried Python yet, but would imagine it’s similar. It’s all containerized, so you effectively have CI/CD you just don’t see it.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#448

Post by john-tells-all »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #447
aleksiy123 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one more point I would like to add to the "less friction to start." This is the killer feature for education. No more do students have to set up their own envs. Figure out PYTHONPATH. No more do educators need to debug installation issues on 3 different OSes. Teachers distribute a pre setup env which they know works for what they are trying to teach. Students go straight into writing code and building things…

Check out Repit.com. They’ve added the ability to add dependencies. Having an easy way to hack on some Java with Maven dependencies already installed is pretty great. I think this is possible using GitHub Codespaces as well…if you have a Java project with a Maven POM, the deps in the POM will get loaded at runtime. I haven’t tried Python yet, but would imagine it’s similar. It’s all containerized, so you effectively…

link: https://replit.com/

As in "REPL it", Read Eval Print Loop :)

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#449

Post by [deleted] »

orloffm wrote: post #281

Cloud desktops were fine a few years ago in Windows 7 times when the desktop was 2D and was remoted as GDI instructions. Windows 10 made everything 3D, so now not having a GPU assigned to a virtual machine means everything is first rendered into a bitmap and then sent over wire as a movie. This causes additional delay, JPEG-like artifacts and instability.

[deleted]

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#450

Post by qu4z-2 »

rollcat wrote: post #358
babypuncher wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just flat out wrong. Any seasoned gamer can feel the difference between a few tens of milliseconds. 300ms would render most video games unplayable. I see this claim a lot and it's making me want to build a website that gives you some common interactions (moving a mouse cursor, pressing a button) with adjustable latency so people can see just how big of an impact seemingly small amounts of lag have on how resp…

https://aresluna.org/keyboard-secrets/typing-delay/

This is great, thanks. I'll have to remember it next time someone makes that bizarre claim.
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