Howto make the switch to OpenSuSE on the desktop as a primary system?

cagsm

8 Mar 2022 8 Mar '22

09:06

Hello list, non-desktop user of Linux here. How to best switch over to OpenSuSE on the desktop for daily normal gui life on the desktop? So far only on windows. I have a physical windows machine, I run gui and applications on it. The machine stays running. I lock the screen desktop. I return to the machine physically and have all my stuff running or available. Being remotely, what I often do in Windows ist tunnel to the windows machine via SSH means, and then remote desktop (microsoft rdp client) or VNC to the machine as a secondary means if needed. How do I make the switch over for this primary windows system into the linux desktop world? Occasionally I ssh to remote linux machines and use x11vnc and a vnc client to grab the real display:0 kind of physical screen pixel output of the linux machine and make it visible at my local place (also mostly being windows machines currently). X11vnc is often really sluggish on some targets even though the round trip time and the bandwidth allows plenty, I have not fugured out why the huge delays on certain x11vnc sessions happen. Anyways. How would I switch over from so far working on windows (normal firefox, mails/thunderbird, office documents related stuff) to a linux opensuse main machine. Reaching the windows or linux machine network wise via ssh tunnel is okay and dealt with i guess. How do I get my pixels to my off-site physical machine the best ways? I remember x11-servers and names of some such tools on windows from days back when hummingbird exceed or similar stuff. What would be the best practices to simply be able to access the screen of a linux machine from nearly anywhere from remotely in safe and sound means? That x11vnc attempt doesnt seem right to me. I read about newer concepts such as x2go, nomachines' nx and other stuff. . I also know about such stuff as teamviewer, anydesk and various vnc types and dialects. Also I read about that one can add some rdp (microsoft kind-of rdp server to the linux machine) and use normal rdp clients to connect to. Maybe I am going down the wrong road or doing things not in a fancy way. Thanks for insight.

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Per Jessen

8 Mar 8 Mar

09:26

cagsm wrote:

...

non-desktop user of Linux here. How to best switch over to OpenSuSE on the desktop for daily normal gui life on the desktop?

There is only one way - just do it.

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So far only on windows. I have a physical windows machine, I run gui and applications on it. The machine stays running. I lock the screen desktop. I return to the machine physically and have all my stuff running or available.

The only thing you may need to worry about is anything on your Windows machine that does not exist for Linux. Usually fairly specialized applications or consumer electronics software.

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How would I switch over from so far working on windows (normal firefox, mails/thunderbird, office documents related stuff) to a linux opensuse main machine.

Just do it :-) I switched over myself and my company sixteen years ago.

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How do I get my pixels to my off-site physical machine the best ways? I remember x11-servers and names of some such tools on windows from days back when hummingbird exceed or similar stuff. What would be the best practices to simply be able to access the screen of a linux machine from nearly anywhere from remotely in safe and sound means?

You use X over SSH. '-X' enables X forwarding over SSH.

...

Maybe I am going down the wrong road or doing things not in a fancy way. Thanks for insight.

Sometimes it is best to describe the problem rather than the current solution. It sounds to me like you want GUI access to remote Linux systems, which I believe is best done by enabling X11 forwarding. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (1.4°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - your free DNS host, made in Switzerland.

cagsm

09:35

On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 10:26 AM Per Jessen wrote:

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You use X over SSH. '-X' enables X forwarding over SSH. Sometimes it is best to describe the problem rather than the current solution. It sounds to me like you want GUI access to remote Linux systems, which I believe is best done by enabling X11 forwarding.

Thanks for the reply. Maybe my question is much more simpler: how do other linux on desktop running folks connect to their linux desktop machine from especially non unix/linux remote machines? I know about xforwarding from very long time ago (see that hummingbird exceed x11 server for windows product) I want to use opensuse kde as a primary system. So far so good. No problems with the applications available, I dont need many. Firefox. Thunderbird, Libreoffice. All good. I wander off to other places, vacation, work, family, hotel. When not having a linux based computer around me e.g. a linux notebook laptop, if I have a say windows laptop with me: How do I connect back home to the linux desktop machine and have my pixels? The whole desktop pixels all of it. All those many means and tools and stuff such as x11vnc, nomachine nx, x2go, remotedesktop/rdp (?) What would be a safe and sane way? How do others do it? ty

Per Jessen

09:46

cagsm wrote:

...

On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 10:26 AM Per Jessen wrote:

...
You use X over SSH. '-X' enables X forwarding over SSH. Sometimes it is best to describe the problem rather than the current solution. It sounds to me like you want GUI access to remote Linux systems, which I believe is best done by enabling X11 forwarding.

Thanks for the reply. Maybe my question is much more simpler: how do other linux on desktop running folks connect to their linux desktop machine from especially non unix/linux remote machines?

Ah, connecting remotely to your linux desktop.

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I know about xforwarding from very long time ago (see that hummingbird exceed x11 server for windows product)

Yep, I know that one, also used it twenty-some years ago, also their 3270 emulator.

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I want to use opensuse kde as a primary system. So far so good. No problems with the applications available, I dont need many. Firefox. Thunderbird, Libreoffice. All good.

...

I wander off to other places, vacation, work, family, hotel. When not having a linux based computer around me e.g. a linux notebook laptop, if I have a say windows laptop with me: How do I connect back home to the linux desktop machine and have my pixels? The whole desktop pixels all of it.

That is a little bit out of my area, but ISTR something about running a small X server on the Windows system. Other option - teamviewer, vnc etc. These days Windows has improved a lot, at least wrt Linux tools, so perhaps you don't even need it.

...

All those many means and tools and stuff such as x11vnc, nomachine nx, x2go, remotedesktop/rdp (?) What would be a safe and sane way? How do others do it? ty

Personally I don't :-) when I'm away from home or the office, I generally carry a Linux laptop with whatever I need. I have no reason to access my home or office desktop interface. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (1.6°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - free dynamic DNS, made in Switzerland.

Carlos E. R.

10:46

On 2022-03-08 10:35, cagsm wrote:

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On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 10:26 AM Per Jessen wrote:

...
You use X over SSH. '-X' enables X forwarding over SSH. Sometimes it is best to describe the problem rather than the current solution. It sounds to me like you want GUI access to remote Linux systems, which I believe is best done by enabling X11 forwarding.

Thanks for the reply. Maybe my question is much more simpler: how do other linux on desktop running folks connect to their linux desktop machine from especially non unix/linux remote machines?

The thing I don't understand is, why the need to access the whole desktop remotely? If what you are going to use is applications such as Thunderbird, Libreoffice, I would set them up in my local computer, and access remote resources such as filesystems or email. Probably the applications would be much more responsive and demand fewer resources. Or, just run the application I need remotely, not the entire desktop, via "ssh -X ...". True, many _modern_ applications run sluggishly this way. But Thunderbird in particular has some hybrid mode that maybe you can experiment with. Although in theory, inside a LAN you can just start a X session on another machine. I have not done this in a long time, I have forgotten how to do it. Problem is, new graphics stack development is going away from this. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.3 x86_64 at Telcontar)

Adam Mizerski

15:49

New subject: Accessing desktop remotely (was Re: Howto make the switch to OpenSuSE on the desktop as a primary system?)

W dniu 08.03.2022 o 10:35, cagsm pisze:

...

On Tue, Mar 8, 2022 at 10:26 AM Per Jessen wrote:

...
You use X over SSH. '-X' enables X forwarding over SSH. Sometimes it is best to describe the problem rather than the current solution. It sounds to me like you want GUI access to remote Linux systems, which I believe is best done by enabling X11 forwarding.

Thanks for the reply. Maybe my question is much more simpler: how do other linux on desktop running folks connect to their linux desktop machine from especially non unix/linux remote machines?

I know about xforwarding from very long time ago (see that hummingbird exceed x11 server for windows product)

I want to use opensuse kde as a primary system. So far so good. No problems with the applications available, I dont need many. Firefox. Thunderbird, Libreoffice. All good. I wander off to other places, vacation, work, family, hotel. When not having a linux based computer around me e.g. a linux notebook laptop, if I have a say windows laptop with me: How do I connect back home to the linux desktop machine and have my pixels? The whole desktop pixels all of it.

All those many means and tools and stuff such as x11vnc, nomachine nx, x2go, remotedesktop/rdp (?) What would be a safe and sane way? How do others do it? ty

This is my setup: 1) VPN (and I'm not talking about recently famous proxies for web browsers). I'm lucky enough to have a public IP at home, so I have configured wireguard to be accessible from outside. 2) I leave my PC running and logged in graphical session. Starting graphical session over ssh is a bit of a challenge, and you might miss stuff like hardware acceleration. 3) VNC. I use this script to launch VNC server remotely over ssh: export $(systemctl --user show-environment | grep -E "^XAUTHORITY=") x0vncserver -display :0 -PasswordFile ~/.vnc/passwd You need to use vncpasswd to create passwd file first. It's also possible to have x0vncserver started automatically at login, but it wastes a lot of cpu cycles when not actually used. 4) VNC client can connect to "ip.address.inside.vpn:0"

James Knott

19:13

On 2022-03-08 4:06 a.m., cagsm wrote:

...

What would be the best practices to simply be able to access the screen of a linux machine from nearly anywhere from remotely in safe and sound means?

I use NoMachine. It's available for Linux, Windows, Android and more. https://www.nomachine.com/

Klaus Maas

9 Mar 9 Mar

11:08

Did ever consider making your data portable? Put your data on external media, preferably LUKS encrypted. External SSD, fast USB sticks, even microSD cards are fast enough. Have a home system. Get a Linux laptop. When leaving home unplug your data drive and keep it with you. I myself use microSD. Fits in wallets. Get a microSD adapter with a metal body. Plastic ones tend to break eventually. When returning to the home system backup first - also LUKS encrypted drives. Rotating rust will do. Your data are on you. If eg. the notebook is stolen, you just loose the hardware, bad enough, but no one gets your data. Loose your wallet, very serious by itself, your data are encrypted. No need for cloud or high bandwidth connection. Any Linux system you trust you can connect your portable data drive device to. Remember to backup. A scripted rsync solution with hard linking works perfectly. At home And on the road to a secondary - also encrypted - microSD card if you really must. You write you use Thunderbird. I moved my TB profile to the external device. Name it how you like and use that name and path in the profile.ini in the ~./. thunderbird folder. Do that on one system, copy that in to your device and copy it over any other TB installation on any of your systems on which you want to have access to your accounts. Really easy. Just remember: Systems are exchangeable, your data are unique. Keep your data safe and secure with you. No cloud, No remote access required And backup because it is good for your peace of mind. On Tue, Mar 8, 2022, 20:14 James Knott wrote:

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On 2022-03-08 4:06 a.m., cagsm wrote:

...
What would be the best practices to simply be able to access the screen of a linux machine from nearly anywhere from remotely in safe and sound means?

I use NoMachine. It's available for Linux, Windows, Android and more.

https://www.nomachine.com/

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Adam Mizerski
cagsm
Carlos E. R.
James Knott
Klaus Maas
Per Jessen

Howto make the switch to OpenSuSE on the desktop as a primary system?

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