Remote desktop for normal people

apparently chrome remote desktop doesnt work. i need something that doesnt require a person at the remote pc to give me a pw every time. i need it to log into my htpc. teamviewer doesnt work,and many of the others are too complicated.

another perfect example of why linux struggles. trying to get basic stuff to work is like pulling teeth sometimes.
i dont have time or desire to screw around with ■■■■, i need it to just work.

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They've recently restructured their plans to make the free tier (now called Lite) less obvious, they've even hidden it right down in the footer and it's not mentioned on their pricing page, but you can use a RealVNC account to remotely access machines without having to sort out port forwarding or dynamic DNS or anything fancy. Just sign up, install the server app on up to 3 computers, and install the client / viewer app on other devices including Android.

I use it for my headless Raspberry Pi.

Also, I'd argue that while there may not be a single solution for this pre-installed on all linux distros, as there is with Windows, remote desktop solutions are really not "basic stuff". The vast, vast majority of users never, ever touch remote desktop functionality - most probably don't even know it exists!

Further, Windows' built-in remote desktop solution is not something that "just works" and has all sorts of problems, not least of which is that if you login to a remote machine it will not make you aware of the fact that someone else already was; it will just kick them out and if they try to log back in immediately, you'll be kicked straight out as well. It also provides basically zero ability to sanely manage multiple saved remote connections / profiles. Honestly it's just straight-up garbage and I wouldn't recommend anyone use it even if we were all locked into Windows.

Just because something is different on linux than on Windows doesn't mean they're bad, or even that they're worse than Windows. Some things certainly are, but remote desktop software is one medal that Windows absolutely does not win.

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thank you for the recommendation, ill give it a try. yeah, windows rdp sucks, but as much as i hate google, the rdp works perfectly on everything BUT linux.

You could try NoMachine or Anydesk from flathub. Nomachine works well on Zorin and Anydesk on Solus to windows.

i ended up going with Rustdesk. it works. thats all i need, lol.

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or there's Remmina:

I used it to access my workplace server drives without recourse to Windows/Edge which required 3 logins to access the server - only once, using Remmina!

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