Good morning/afternoon/evening everybody,

So I'm looking to get back into Linux again after being away from it for quite some time. A lot has changed and I'm interested to re-learn things again.

So in my current windows environment I can just do a simple start -> run -> mstsc (microsoft remote desktop connection), type in the hostname of my computer, enter my credentials, and away I go. I'm logged into the desktop of that computer, full desktop, etc.

So my question is what's the Linux equivalent of this? Is there any way to use my existing remote desktop connection to connect directly to the new Linux box with full desktop?

Thanks in advance for any help provided

Cheers

The most popular protocol is probably VNC. Also exists on Windows, by the way. On Linux, you may encounter it under different names such as Vino. Another protocol is NX, and yet another one (Red Hat only?) Spice. Search for rdp equivalent linux.

RDP clients for Linux exist, perhaps also servers. Just search.

Short answer: Yes
Longer answer: Yes, but why bother??

Yes, you can run VNC and get a whole X desktop...but why do you NEED it?? Linux isn't Windows...you don't need the desktop GUI to manage a system, or even use graphical apps. X-forwarding over SSH lets you run a GUI based app locally, without an entire desktop. A standard SSH session lets you do pretty much everything, and doesn't need a GUI. Also, X forwarding only uses one port (the one that SSH uses), instead of having to open several, for no real reason.

Better question is WHY you 'need' an entire GUI desktop, and can you accomplish what you want without it?

Hi there,

Thanks for that. I did know about VNC. I've used it quite a bit in a couple of my previous jobs so I'm pretty familiar with it. I'll probably end up giving that one a go

I'd like to run it that way as the desktop won't be near my monitors, kb, etc. I'm going to be installing on a small form factor pc, and tucking it away behind my router with nothing but a power supply and ethernet cable coming from it. Meanwhile I'm upstairs in my office re-learning on the full desktop experience.

I did know I can ssh into it and run pretty much everything from a CLI. But then again some of us like myself just like the full bloat experience

Edit: Spelling