I occasionally need to access computers over a shared remote desktop.
I had a functional setup for years based on ssh and x11 forwarding in x2go.
I recently needed to connect remotely and discovered that due to the switch to wayland remote desktop sharing is broken and fails with a “no accessible desktop found” error.
a web search showed no solution to this issue.
here are my two questions: how can I regain remote access to this desktop without rebooting or closing the desktop session (needed to debug a transient issue currently affecting this session)? I retained ssh access and have root privileges on the remote box.
and is wayland really lagging so far behind and so not ready for everyday use that it does not have remote desktop sharing as I gathered ? I would be happy if this was not the case, and in such case how to achieve that ? (unencrypted and insecure connections such as vnc is not an option, and broken proprietary software such as teamviewer it also out of the question.)
-edit-
forgot to mention that both computers are running the latest up to date stable manjaro, both have plasma as desktop environment, but the remote one is wayland and the local one is x11/xorg (had to revert to x11-session due to a few critical issues with stability and performance, several severe bugs, missing features and lack of polishing with wayland on the local box).
Well, there is waypipe, which is the Wayland equivalent to X-forwarding over ssh, and there are full remote-desktop solutions as well. You just need to find the right packages and read the documentation.
Waypipe actually works quite well. I’ve tested it between my Testing Laptop and my partner’s Stable Laptop, both of which run with Intel GPUs, and my Media machine, the Dell 5110 with the nVidia GPU (running Stable with the nouveau driver).
Between the two Intel machines it works with.
waypipe ssh username@host kwrite
for example.
To use it with the media machine requires
waypipe --no-gpu ssh user@host audacity
This is required because it fails on the server (the remote machine) due to mismatched GPU, (I Think).
The other method of running applications or desktops remotely, is to use RustDesk. RustDesk is an open source replacement for Team Viewer and And AnyDesk.
RustDesk can be found as rustdesk-bin in the AUR, or as a flatpak.
It is easy to extend to give more than one user access
I vaguely recall I read that waypipe uses ssh to create the tunnel over which the screen is sent.
waypipe is not remote desktop sharing but having waypipe on both sides enables you to run a specific application on the remote system.
That application will use the remote system’s resources - just a trivial example, you could run dolphin over waypipe - this will allow you to manipulate the file remote system - you even get a built in terminal access by hitting F4.
@lanmoata , another option, is to use Rustdesk, free remote desktop software, but it has limitations on Wayland as well, currently the remote device cannot be using Wayland. This is one of the reasons those that rely on Remote Desktop software are not very happy with the way Wayland is being pushed, it’s all gaming with little regard for anything else.
good for you, but it still is irrelevant as it is entirely out of scope of the matter discussed here.
waypipe is a tool to “Remotely display Wayland applications” which not at all what I am asking for, even worse it is exactly what I do not want.
have you even read the topic before writing your off-topic comment ?
please refrain from spamming this thread with mentions of an irrelevant off-topic software that lacks the functionality I need. if you want to write an appreciation post of waypipe, you are welcome to do so but please open your own thread instead of polluting my support request for a way to share a wayland desktop session remotely to a local x11 session.
well at least you have read the topic. as mentioned in the initial message, vnc is not an option.
and allow me to educate you: vnc over ssh tunneling is NOT totally secure, despite being a net improvement over vnc alone.
also right now vnc hardly works with wayland, wayvnc is pretty much the only option available and it does not support plasma, you have to use sway or hyprland instead of plasma. and afaik there is no option to go x11←→ wayland with vnc. so even if it was not out of question it would not be a valid solution.
thanks for the advice, but from what I’ve read about this issue Rustdesk fails like teamviewer and anydesk do, due to the way wayland is designed: « traditional remote desktop solutions like TeamViewer or AnyDesk, which rely on full-screen, and even full session access by default do not work with Wayland, as of today, and I even doubt they ever will. The same applies to alternatives such as RustDesk, and on my experience, it’s unreliable, slow, and harder to setup in case you want a self-hosted instance.»
this point has been discussed at rustdesk github, here are the two takes from these discussions: «Use X11 if you need unattended access.» and «The transaction from X11 to Wayland is the pain for sure, Wayland will take part of the Linux Desktop in the future.
This is the upstream issues, we should hope Wayland implement macOS or Flatpak like permission control, in that case, user will not need to authorise the permission over and over again, but in certain aspects, this is violates the Wayland goal, but let them fight on the freedesktop. org mailing list or GitLab.»
I guess you can count me in the unhappy people about wayland being pushed way before it is ready, because it lacks the remote desktop functionality that has been a basic feature of *nixes for decades.
it may come at some point in the future to plasma as gnome already has some sort of RDP that seems to work as long as you trick wayland into considering you are in the LAN using a VPN, or using a vnc over ssh tunneling to be able to unlock the session. but the plasma version of this has been under development for over 3 years and is far from ready at the moment, with no roadmap.
I find it worrying that the people in charge of manjaro forum who chimed in this topic seem out of touch with reality and unaware or unwilling to admit this issue.
I am afraid that for the time being the solution will be to remove wayland and go back to x11 which works. this is the path everyone seem to take. but this is not a long term solution as at some point x11 will be deprecated and removed from distros.
unless this is fixed by that time the only option left would be to replace manjaro by windows, and I really do not want that.
Considering that you consistently persist in arrogance and rudeness, this topic is now unlisted. Your vitriol does not deserve being indexed by search engine crawlers.
I would also urge you to reconsider your attitude towards the Manjaro Staff members, because when push comes to shove, we have the ability to show you to the exit door — which is a very tempting thought among the Staff at the moment, I will add.
The above only goes to show how very narrow your understanding is, and what paradigm you really adhere to. You don’t even appear to be aware of other, X11-based desktop environments and/or window managers — Manjaro Xfce is X11-based, and so are window managers like OpenBox.
Solutions have been offered — in kindness — and if they do not satisfy your needs, then do your homework and conduct your own research for something that does fill your needs.
Once you’ve done that and have also managed to get over your ego, you can start a new Support thread, but this thread here will be closed. We are all only unpaid volunteers here, and we’ve got better things to do with our time than endure your bile.