I have a need to access my computer remotely, with a desktop (not just a shell). I found this thing called waypipe, which looks promising, since it can run over SSH. I don't know how to make it open my desktop remotely, though. All I found in the documentation was instructions on launching specific applications. Did I misunderstand waypipe's capabilities? Also, while not exactly critical, audio would be nice, too, except that I have no idea how that would work.
Does anyone know about remote desktops here?
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leyvi
You should be able to run any client, right on gentoo's waypipe page it shows an example launching the
sway compositor / window manager:
You should be able to run any client, right on gentoo's waypipe page it shows an example launching the
sway compositor / window manager:
waypipe ssh user@127.0.0.1 sway
Last edited by xineg on Sat Mar 29, 2025 1:31 pm, edited 5 times in total.
My main experience is with X2Go which also runs over ssh and has some trickery to make X-Forwarding more effective en offer other features. It allows you to have a full session (desktop), to start a single remote application or to transfer the applications menu from the remote system to yours, allowing you to start remote applications via that menu. I especially like the last way of working.
However, this is X11 specific and from the names of the tools you're using you seem to use wayland, i don't know how (and if) that works together.
However, this is X11 specific and from the names of the tools you're using you seem to use wayland, i don't know how (and if) that works together.
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USE="-war" emerge --newuse @world
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USE="-war" emerge --newuse @world
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Good old (and kinda slow IME) VNC should work just as it always has, assuming your VNC server supports screengrabbing under wayland (i.e. via pipewire). AFAIK that pretty much means running a compositor-specific VNC server, e.g. wayvnc, KRFB, gnome-remote-desktop, etc.
I haven't tried shadowing a (physical) wayland session, but I fully expect the answer to be no.
x2go is based on nomachine 3.x, which uses a custom xserver and as such is unlikely to ever support wayland, at least not without a complete redesign.
Some other alternatives I am aware of:
RustDesk has a lot of hype at the moment, probably because it has the word "rust" in it (and likely the usual blue haired furries as well). Haven't gotten around to trying it myself yet, but reports are generally positive and there are ebuilds in gentoo-zh.
Nomachine works with wayland now, but current iterations are proprietary. Free for personal use and a single client though.
Sunshine/moonlight does KMS frame capture from the GPU (so mostly display-server agnostic), it's meant for gaming but works just fine as a remote desktop. It's ridiculously fast, but it requires an active physical display output and elevated permissions on the server. This is what I use currently for access to my (always on) home PC from a laptop or phone, started on-demand over SSH with a script that wakes the physical display and launches the server.
In my case I also need access from clients not running wayland, so waypipe isn't really an option. For wayland-wayland connections it's likely the easiest answer, and it should be familiar to those used to X11 forwarding over SSH.
Single-application forwarding works the same as ever for X11 applications, and not at all for wayland native ones. Launching a new desktop session should still work, but naturally, it'll be an X11 session.pa4wdh wrote:X2Go...
you seem to use wayland, i don't know how (and if) that works together.
I haven't tried shadowing a (physical) wayland session, but I fully expect the answer to be no.
x2go is based on nomachine 3.x, which uses a custom xserver and as such is unlikely to ever support wayland, at least not without a complete redesign.
Some other alternatives I am aware of:
RustDesk has a lot of hype at the moment, probably because it has the word "rust" in it (and likely the usual blue haired furries as well). Haven't gotten around to trying it myself yet, but reports are generally positive and there are ebuilds in gentoo-zh.
Nomachine works with wayland now, but current iterations are proprietary. Free for personal use and a single client though.
Sunshine/moonlight does KMS frame capture from the GPU (so mostly display-server agnostic), it's meant for gaming but works just fine as a remote desktop. It's ridiculously fast, but it requires an active physical display output and elevated permissions on the server. This is what I use currently for access to my (always on) home PC from a laptop or phone, started on-demand over SSH with a script that wakes the physical display and launches the server.
In my case I also need access from clients not running wayland, so waypipe isn't really an option. For wayland-wayland connections it's likely the easiest answer, and it should be familiar to those used to X11 forwarding over SSH.
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