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Does someone know a valid alternative on Linux that runs with performance comparable to the RDP on windows 10?

FreeRDP and VNC have bad FPS performance, and the only program I found which can decently manage the remote connection is NoMachine, but it's still far from the RDP experience on Windows 10.

Update: I've already tried xrdp, but it has the same performance of VNC.

More details:

  • Yes, I'm in control of my server and I can reach it via VPN or external internet.

  • The client is windows and the server is Linux.

  • "Bad performance" means that every action is not fluid and responsive like when I'm connected to a windows server via RDP

  • I want to use a normal program like Visual Studio Code for programming, normal browser for surfing, and yes some time watch videos and not much else.
  • This server does not have a GPU.
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    welcome to SU, you want RDP-like as client (using it from linux to access windows) or as a server (using rdp client to access linux) ?
    – Archemar
    Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 8:05
  • Are you in control of the server? Are both server & client on Linux?
    – harrymc
    Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 9:54
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    "Bad FPS performance" isn't very descriptive - what kind of programs do you want to run? If you run OpenGL programs where screen content changes quickly, all image- or delta-based methods will have "bad FPS performance". In that case, have a look at VirtualGL, which uses hardware acceleration on the remote machine.
    – dirkt
    Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 16:56
  • I've updated the question with, I hope, all the answers to your questions.
    – Nuked
    Commented Dec 27, 2019 at 18:41
  • xrdp has considerably faster performance than vnc. However, it does not have the performance you would get in a single computer. What I use is xming on the Windows computer with unencrypted, plain TCP connections over the LAN. I do not use X forwarding over SSH, and eliminating the compression and encryption overhead result in an improvement. Start xming on your Windows computer with start "Xming" /D "c:\program files (x86)\xming\" /b "xming.exe" :0 -ac -from 0.0.0.0 +bs -clipboard -multiwindow -nowinkill and then connect from the LInux computer with DISPLAY=x.x.x.x:0.0 command.
    – user308986
    Commented Jan 1, 2020 at 9:35

6 Answers 6

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+25

Windows RDP achieves its speed by the fact that both server and client are created by Microsoft, which allows it to be heavily optimized.

For example: RDP uses compression to speed up the screen casting, and especially video codecs. To support larger screens than full HD, it will use the AVC/H.264 video codec. This allows it to use the video GPU to speed up the video display and make it more fluid, but it will fall back to the CPU if it is not available.

NoMachine is similarly using a fast protocol, the NX protocol, to achieve its speed, but it cannot compete with Microsoft's RDP.

I would therefore look for products that have both server and client components and that use a non-VNC protocol. Below are some such products that you may try:

  • Xpra
    An open-source multi-platform persistent remote display server and client for forwarding applications and desktop screens. Among its Wiki is listed OpenGL client-side "for better window rendering performance" and server-side for "running accelerated OpenGL application", so it may be fast enough.

  • Apache Guacamole
    A clientless remote desktop gateway whose viewer is any browser that supports HTML5. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH. As it supports the RDP protocol it might be fast enough, although the documentation does not mention which version of RDP. Setup documentation

  • TeamViewer
    Perhaps the best-known remote screen product, cross-platform but not open-source. I have used it many times, and it always was very responsive and feature-rich.

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    How many of these have you tried, and how do they compare? Guacamole is essentially a web client/front end for many other protocols.
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 3:14
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I will say you use rdesktop command but it seems that this project will not have a mantainer. Very light software to connect via RDP over Linux shell.

I suggest you use Remmina if rdesktop cannot be find at Ubuntu 18, give a try:

I have used these two ones at work when I have to access Windows Servers at my Ubuntu desktop and I always have a good impression of rdesktop a free reverse engineering of RDP protocol. At this link bellow you can find reference for this.

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    Apart from the fact that they are both great applications, they are just clients. And a client is not really what's making a difference in a remote connection performance because it depends on the protocol you are using. I've updated the question with more detail of what i'm asking.
    – Nuked
    Commented Dec 27, 2019 at 19:46
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    +1 Remmina is my favorite!
    – F.Rahamim
    Commented Jan 1, 2020 at 9:40
  • @Nuked I have update my reply to consider the fact that rdesktop is a free RDP reverse engineering tool.
    – Marlon
    Commented Jan 3, 2020 at 19:42
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    Yes, but my client is Windows and my server is Linux so this solution is not applicable to my situation.
    – Nuked
    Commented Jan 3, 2020 at 21:26
  • Updated: Sorry, looking at 1st time your question was not so clear for me. You should say at 1st post that you are connecting to a Ubuntu Server from Windows 10 by RDP. @Nuked
    – Marlon
    Commented Jan 4, 2020 at 16:58
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Well since this is from January, i found this trying to use RDP on a far away server on AWS on linux.

xRDP works great on LAN scenarios per example even on WAN, but if u have a server that its very far away with high latency as expected, it fails, i tried to tweak xRDP without any improvement, as it states here its slow compared to Windows RDP, even on same latency and on same machine.

I tried VNC it was same slow.

First i thought it was something related from GNOME, LXDE, LXQT, XFCE well using xRDP it was faster on those light desktops, but again its not that responsive as you expect from windows side.

What u needed is X2GO that should do it i read about this here: https://hasanyavuz.ozderya.net/?p=503

here it states why RDP from Windows its better than linux counterparts, but also there are some alternatives to achieve that smooth/feeling from windows RDP on linux, what u need its something using NX protocol, like Nomachine,Xpra and i found X2GO also use this.

it seems Xpra its a much better solution but since i couldnt move forward adding the PPK to the Xpra interface (Since EC2 servers on AWS uses this) and X2GO was so easy to use, just install and works, well X2GO its the winner for me

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You could try xrdp with tigervnc-server, but you will need to adjust screen resolution, etc. to suit your needs. I can't take credit for this suggestion because I found it on It'zGeek.

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  • Sorry i didn't write it in the question but i've already tried it and the performance is the same of vnc.
    – Nuked
    Commented Dec 23, 2019 at 10:42
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An open-source alternative to RDP on linux, which is comparable to Teamviewer (but still in development) is rustdesk (rustdesk.com)

The usability is like Teamviewer with comparable performace. It is not like RDP on windows, but there seems to be nothing alike in terms of performance and integration.

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    – Community Bot
    Commented Apr 15, 2022 at 7:45
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Marlon may be correct ... the issue may be on the server side. Perhaps you are limited by your hardware, as in some systems are assisted by use of the GPU for hardware acceleration (on the server). If you figure it out, please let us know so that we can benefit too.

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