Linux Desktop in the Cloud Tutorial | Create and Access From Anywhere

[@75321596357895147]

I've been bashing my head against the wall for the last two days and your video finally got me running VNC. So much clearer than other tutorials! Thank you!

[@kbhasi]

You may notice that the fonts are a little too small. To fix that, add `-dpi 96` to the VNC server command, so it looks like this: `vncserver :1 -dpi 96` To disable access control so you can run apps as the 'root' user, append `-ac` to the command before running it.

[@swagatopablo]

Awesome lesson Jay. Just what I was looking for. One feedback. If you change your terminal colour theme to distinguish between local shell and linode shell, it would be easier to follow.

[@sprtwlf9314]

Amazing video Jay. This is exactly what I've been looking for. Going to re watch and follow along in my new Linode. Great content as always.

[@mepaul22]

Wow thats great. I just followed your steps and it worked like a charm. I have mate desktop running from my linode.

[@sebolio]

that's a very nice and clean desk, mate, great video

[@temoshee7477]

Hello. When I run apt-install-ubuntu-mate-desktop I get a dialog box labeled "Configuring lightdm." The choices are gdm3 or lightdm. gdm3 was the default and did not work but it worked after I manually chose lightdm.

[@DennisGroenveld]

Hmm. Getting stuck here. Trying to make this work using the VNC viewer on my iPad. I don’t see a way to create an SSH tunnel.

[@jasonwhisnant5457]

14:15 open up Remmina which is "right here" is that your desktop? How do I run it from the cli on the vncserver?

[@ramazanbulbul5036]

on the minute 09:32 I am not able to run install remmina command because of I am using windows. What am I going to do?

[@lordofwater1213]

You miss out a vital step at 3:40. I can't see what screen you are using to enter the code. It is different than the login screen.

[@codemeister3]

This doesn't work. How do we close our SSH connections? can we have more than 1?

[@henryeck8015]

Great video, I walked through the steps and got the remote desktop running, however there is no browser nor any software boutique or equivalent. I installed firefox but it will not run, failed to load module appmenu-gtk-module. Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks.

[@SupItsJ]

Stuck at the end configuring VNC to localhost:1 Feeling like VNC wasnt told the endpoint where to look to connect .... any help?

[@ismaeladriannnn]

Do you recommend me this option for running my web application? Please I need help. Thanks a lot

[@midnightmythos]

Great tutorial, was able to use it without creating a new startup script!

[@Alexander42099]

how do you clear it with the press of a button.... i get lost there.

[@bloocifer]

i followed along on linux and it worked. Then i tried to get back into it and remmina wont load anything. says vncserver is running and i tried doing the long ssh tunnel command again. cant bring it back up in remmina now

[@sherifarafa9393]

Actually I am using a windows PC, what can I do differently to be able to access the linux GUI from my local PC??

[@Chris_AR1]

Can you do this exact same walkthrough but with Windows to connect via VNC. I'm able to follow along easily to SSH securely, but not having as much success with the VNC using VNC viewer.

[@gthosts]

i didn't get a folder named .vnc

[@klekaelly]

I get a warning "unencrypted connection". How can I resolve this?

[@zzirSupeR]

ok now how do i add sound to this desktop in the cloud

[@giovannicarosa8819]

So I’ve followed your instructions, great video btw. I am logged into my desktop in the cloud but I didn’t have Firefox or any browser. So I installed Firefox but it will not load? I’m not using Linode I’m using a different cloud services but it is Ubuntu….

[@relaxitis_]

Hey can you make video from windows i am having some problems

[@dolbrechts1980]

would be nice to have luks for a complete disk encryption is this possible on linode ?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

You can check out the documentation for Guacamole which offers a few different configurations for encryption of your instance guacamole.apache.org/doc/gug/configuring-guacamole.html

[@deedee20000]

I prefer cinnamon desktop to mate. Would the x startup bash script need to be changed to. exec / user/bin/cinnamon- session & or what would it need to be?

[@rupeshsinghindia]

how to share camera and microphone with cloud desktop

[@abdiag603]

Can the Remote Desktop be used to upload files to the server? And by the way is it a must to install a Remote Desktop? It’s a bit an overkill on the virtual host I gues.

[@Piiraaa]

i tried 3 times to sign up for linode but get denied..fraudulent behaviour it says..my adress is correct..paypal is correct..i double checked that...i dont get it

[@funnymonkeystudios1]

Thank you so much! This is so cool!

[@AndyDavis007]

What preconfigured thin client solution is anyone using to connect to their hosted Linode desktop?

[@ArjunVishnu]

You can use a Raspberry Pi. All models work alright although the Pi Zero will have a lag refreshing higher screen resolutions. Pi3 and Pi4 are the best bet. It's not pre-configured though, but either RealVNC Viewer or Remmina can be installed on Raspbian. If you plan to use Mate along with RealVNC Viewer, install the 32 bit OS since RealVNC Viewer is not available for ARM 64 as yet.

[@ITgamer35]

This helped so much!

[@LinuxMate]

Thanks Jay! That’s pretty cool. Is there a way to do it without setting up the ssh tunnel?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

We recommend using the ssh tunnel for security, but you can connect without it. You must first ensure that your firewall is configured to allow inbound communication to the ports used by the VNC server.

[@ArjunVishnu]

Naa... that's not a good for security. VNC uses 8 character passwords and as Jay explained, it will truncate anything more than that. And there is no username for VNC either which makes it a total of 8 factorial combinations = 40320 possible passwords. Better setup the tunnel and firewall the VNC port. SSH will encrypt the VNC password and the tunnel will ensure only localhost can access it.

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

Thanks, @@ArjunVishnu As mentioned, using an SSH tunnel is a more secure, and definitely recommended, way to connect.

[@rexated5148]

Me and maybe a million other customers would pay $1 to have this whole process automated, in the spirit of Linode one click marketplace apps. Less typing, less clicking, no need to connect via ssh. There are many like myself. This process looks to take more than 10 minutes. Automation would be worth $10, and $1 would be a no-brainer, I’d love to avoid having to do so much setup.

[@MrDjegsi]

Thanks Jay, can open multiple session , because what is happing is , when l try to connect with second session screen is remaining black ?!

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

It depends on what configuration and operating system you're using, but this is a common solution to only seeing a black screen serverfault.com/questions/319056/vnc-viewer-issue-showing-black-screen/330744

[@lopo8000]

what do they charge etra for the 4gb instance? where is the catch? extra cahrges for network?? on amazon the cost is double right?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

This setup requires more resources to run smoothly, when you pay for a 4GB server you are getting more RAM, CPU, storage, and network bandwidth as mentioned at 1:30 If you have more pricing questions there is more info at linode.com/pricing

[@LukeLane1984]

I've been thinking about setting up a Linux server using this service, however, I find it odd that the pricing scales linearly with the specs. And not even completely linearly, because going from the 2GB plan to the 4GB plan, you pay double the price, get double the RAM and double the CPU cores, but not double the storage. This doesn't really give hobbyists much incentive to go with a higher tier plan in order to get better returns.

[@josephpratico8036]

Why do I keep getting the error "Timed out waiting for a response from computer" when trying to make a new connection with the vnc?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

If you're using RealVNC, this should help you troubleshoot the issue help.realvnc.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002254738-VNC-Connect-Error-Messages

[@tonebaxter]

Couldn’t you just run ssh -x To achieve the same thing? It’s been a while for me so maybe I’m missing something but this seems kind of tedious. But anyway ❤️ the channel

[@shodanxx]

Tried this but this method gets less than 1 frame per second watching video and uses 100% cpu on the vps. VNC is obsolete tech from the early 1990 unfortunately. I tried xrdp and nomachine nx, it was sligthly better, like , maybe 2 frames per second. Now I have option left, ffmpeg desktop streaming or "sunshine" the open source server for moonlight, the open source client compatible with nvidia gamestream

[@alfarahat]

Many thanks jay

[@authorsandeepraviduttsharma]

You have nicely explained. I have an email server hosted on VPS running CentOS. Can I use it as a Cloud desktop also?

[@andreybalyberdin3575]

Great video! Thanks a lot! I used it for starting OBS but I got the error message. I don't know why. I created Linode server with plan "Dedicated 32 GB + RTX6000 GPU x1". Screenfetch utility shows that GPU NVIDIA [Quadro RTX 6000/8000] is presented. But when I am starting OBS get the message ""Failed initialized video. Your GPU may not be supported or your graphics drivers may need to be updated" . Firefox + youtube are working . Can you help to understand why OBS doesn't start.

[@andreybalyberdin3575]

I did all actions from your video.

[@binaryfire]

Great vid Jay. But wouldn't x2go be a better choice than VNC? From what I've read it's faster than VNC and XRDP?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

x2go is another good option

[@khaleelahmad9411]

where to get remmina on windows? u only guide us to connect using linux. but i want to connect rdp through my windows.

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

These instructions should help you get connected from a Windows device help.realvnc.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003474552-How-do-I-get-started-with-VNC-Connect-on-Windows-and-Mac-#on-the-device-you-want-to-control-from-0-4

[@bluepresley9315]

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you! More than a year later, is this still the recommended approach? Also I need a remote desktop to do some data processing for a few hours a month, at most. Once I get it setup, is there a way I can create an image of this and just run it when I need it?

[@MrJoegotbored]

I could be wrong, but I think the monthly pricing assumes you use the service all the time, 24/7 for a month (usually 30 days). If you don't use it, meaning you don't run the VM, then you don't pay for it. Again, I could be wrong, but pay to play is the default rule at most cloud providers, like Azure, AWS, and GCS. My bet is Linode plays along too.

[@temoshee7477]

Hello. When I ran apt-dist-upgrade I get a dialog box labeled "Configuring openssh-server". The default choice is "keep the local version currently installed". Should I choose that or see what the differences are? Thanks.

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

It's usually recommended to update to the latest version.

[@skytechbits]

You can always scale up if you can only afford the $5 one to start. All we need to know is how much space and whatever other specs the packages and OS require.

[@redblood-f7f]

can we do it with XRDP ?

[@ckykenken]

Why do we need to ssh tunnel and then connect via VNC to ‘localhost’ while we can type the IP of the VPS to connect?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

We recommend the SSH tunnel because it's a more secure way of connecting.

[@ArjunVishnu]

The tunneling is for security. You can read my other comment for detailed explanation. But, just in case you want to do it for convenience, you need to setup Fail2Ban with sharp cutoff's (1 max tries & huge bantime), still, I feel tunneling is the best option.

[@dolbrechts1980]

to make it even more secure ufw install and private key ssh :-p

[@supersnapp]

This was good. But I have all the same Linux responses in the terminal. But I get a connection time out when I connect through Remmina. The error was "channel 3: open failed: connect failed: Connection timeout" However, I pinged the server and it is fine. After a few hours of troubleshooting I just deleted that Linode. I had nothing setup in it anyway. I will try again with a new Ubuntu Linode and report what I found trying it a second time. **Coming back the next day. The second attempt failed as well. I am thinking of trying Google Cloud instead.

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

There's many different things that could cause the connection to time out. The most common one is a firewall either on your Linode or your local router blocking the ports needed for VNC to run normally. If you've double checked the firewalls in both places and it's still not working, make a post on our Community Questions site with everything you've done to troubleshoot so far: www.linode.com/community/questions/

[@supersnapp]

@@AkamaiDeveloper Thanks much Jay! I will check. I failed at connecting through AWS and Google also. So it sounds like it may be independent of the web service setup and checking my firewall is something I will do and report back on. BTW, after I installed the Ubuntu UI, it came up in the GLish. But the Ubuntu UI was too slow, and I need to switch to Mate as you recommended.

[@furkansats2890]

hi this thing is valid for android (create from android phone)

[@jaimemarcos4824]

Hi Jay! Thank you for sharing! I love this tutorial. Planning to setup a remote desktop. I do have a question regarding multiple users accessing at the same time. Is this possible? What configuration should I modify?

[@niyazniyazov]

Thanks!!!! you are PERFECT !!!

[@Cyber_AR15]

Great video

[@DimitrisChr]

Great video! Is XFCE supported?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

Thanks! XFCE is also supported and may have better performance on smaller instance plans.

[@mortkebab2849]

is there a video for setting up a Windows cloud desktop?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

We don't provide support for Windows, but you do have the option of installing Windows or other non-supported distros and operating systems as a custom distribution. For Windows, this guide can help walk you through the installation process: github.com/only-cliches/docs/blob/windows-on-linode/docs/tools-reference/windows-on-linode/installing-windows-on-linode-vps.md For other unsupported operating systems and distros, you'll want to use this guide: www.linode.com/docs/guides/install-a-custom-distribution-on-a-linode/

[@mortkebab2849]

@@AkamaiDeveloper Thank you for the detailed reply.

[@andreilyas1426]

Thank you for the video, how fast is it? is it as fast as my local computer that it's running on?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

The speed of the instance will depend on the server plan that you install it on. Jay recommends starting out with the 4GB plan in the video.

[@jeroen9130]

Many thanks for this guide, awesome! Is there a better VNC server for Ubuntu that supports better multimedia?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

Thanks for the feedback! You could look into apache guacamole, although the multimedia support is similar. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWPddqFnpZyBqpY

[@hundsboog]

I think you mean something fast, comparable to Microsofts RDP? Well, it will never be suitable for something like streaming or stuff like that. I did some long research on that subject and the closest you can get is "nomachine" but this is also proprietary. Guacamole is also just a client like Remmina using vnc. Nomachine is basically a software client/server on each sites and you can remote into from both sites. Hope this helps!

[@merullshah]

How do you connect over windows?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

On Windows you can download the RealVNC Windows client and connect using that.

[@merullshah]

@@AkamaiDeveloper and which IP do J use for that?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

@@merullshah You'll use the IP address associated with the Linode that you created. You'll be able to see a list of your Linodes at cloud.linode.com/linodes and you can copy the IP address from there.

[@KaleidSkylark]

Okay, im using windows10 how can i connect??

[@KaleidSkylark]

okay no problem i just installed xrdp :D

[@MikeKay1978]

doesn't seem to work, I just "grid".

[@jarboesolutions3519]

me watching this video: "man this random youtube really knows his shit!!" goes to subscribe and it's Linode hahaha

[@12BKLmySHOO]

what about from windows? seems like you forgot to finish the thought for windows users

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

These instructions should help you get connected from a Windows device help.realvnc.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003474552-How-do-I-get-started-with-VNC-Connect-on-Windows-and-Mac-#on-the-device-you-want-to-control-from-0-4

[@davidspencer3962]

Why this much long process? Make it like Vultr and some other services 1 button install

[@Amaqse]

Not only you are making it hard to distinguish for tutorial, which is which, is it the linode console or local one by using that stupid ssh tunel, it should be clear as day which console are you actualy at, you are making it literally impossible for windows people as it does not specify port or anything at all which we can use to connect using remote desktop. You suggest using certain app and do not show how the fk one is supposed to connect using it. FYI it doesnt actualy connect using realvnc on windows so 20$ well spent ;/. Absolutely NO explanation on how to connect without stupid SSH tunnel as creating such things on non linux devices is annoying, especially on mobile.

[@stephenrochester6309]

I have a 1TB plan with Dropbox and I store all my photos on there. Would love to set up my own web server on Linode instead but for 1TB of storage I don’t think I will pay anywhere near the £10 a month I pay now 😂

[@sunnypro9615]

is it free?

[@AkamaiDeveloper]

The software is free to use. Server plans start at $5 per month. More info on pricing can be found at www.linode.com/pricing

[@krimsonbun]

Free?

[@chewylandlive]

Easy peasy, even gramma can do it.....and only $25/month for less than RasPi performance.

[@voodoovinny7125]

Seems a bit expensive. For $20.00 a month you get 2 CPU cores, 80 GB of Storage, and 4 GB of RAM? Seems you can pick up an old Windows XP machine off ebay for a little more than that one month $20 and get better specs.

[@NormanF62]

Can’t recommend them. I signed up and they canceled my newly created account for suspicion of fraudulent behaviour! And I didn’t even login to my account. I will never do business with a company that treats me disrespectfully and wastes my time!😡

[@O_Specktro]

iNice you say "download fucking software to windows" but dont say how to connect to it and change to fuckramina shit...

[@mortkebab2849]

This is bullshit, since you only have the choice of Ubuntu. Can you install some other distro such as Mint, or another OS such as Windows 10?

[@AndyDavis007]

What preconfigured thin client solution is anyone using to connect to their hosted Linode desktop?

[@AndyDavis007]

Definitely thought provoking. A VNC client is looking very long in the tooth especially in 2021 but wrapped in ssh... Ok. I'll have to drop into an HP TC configuration settings to see if this is even an option anymore.