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Best rootless remote X solution? (programming.dev)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by FizzyOrange@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev
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Edit: rootless in this context means the remote windows appear like local windows; not in a big "desktop" window. It's nothing to do with the root account. Sorry, I didn't come up with that confusing term. If anyone can think of a better term let's use that!

This should be a simple task. I ssh to a remote server. I run a GUI command. It appears on my screen (and isn't laggy as hell).

Yet I've never found a solution that really works well in Linux. Here are some that I've tried over the years:

  • Remote X: this is just unusably slow, except maybe over a local network.
  • VNC: almost as slow as remote X and not rootless.
  • NX: IIRC this did perform well but I remember it being a pain to set up and it's proprietary.
  • Waypipe: I haven't actually tried this but based on the description it has the right UX. Unfortunately it only works with Wayland native apps and I'm not sure about the performance. Since it's just forwarding Wayland messages, similar to X forwarding, and not e.g. using a video codec I assume it will have similar performance issues (though maybe not as bad?).

I recently discovered wprs which sounds interesting but I haven't tried it.

Does anyone know if there is a good solution to this decades-old apparently unsolved problem?

I literally just want to ssh <server> xeyes and have xeyes (or whatever) appear on my screen, rootless, without lag, without complicated setup. Is that too much to ask?

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[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 months ago

Yes that's to much to ask

You are adding a ton of overhead and complexity. Expecting it to just work is underestimating the difficulty of it all. With that being said, Xpra is probably what you are looking for. However, I would suggest that you take a look at your use case as there is probably a better solution. What app are you trying to use?

Also, Xorg is a bit of a dinosaur at this point. It isn't going away but gnome and kde have both made plans to drop support long term. We still have a few years but from a longevity perspective I would start thinking about new solutions. KDE and Gnome both support RDP and there are plenty of modern web interfaces for managing servers like Cockpit.

[-] refalo@programming.dev 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

xrdp and x11vnc is rootless

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

But both horribly slow.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 months ago

I highly doubt you can find anything better than XRDP. What do you mean horribly slow? What is the output of a iperf test? What is your GPU?

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

Sorry I misread, VNC is slow. RDP is a lot better. Does not appear to be rootless though, even though IIRC the RDP protocol does support that? I might have misremembered.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago

I don't think that is possible based on what you are asking.

Also rootless is the wrong word for what you are looking for. You are looking to forward a window to the desktop. Rootless is used commonly to describe things like podman

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

WPRS uses the term rootless like this. I didn't come up with it. But I agree it is not a great term. If you can think of a better one I will happily use it. Parallels calls it "coherence mode", which also isn't great.

Actually Xprs uses "seamless mode" which is probably better.

[-] refalo@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Proof? And by what metric? That has not been my experience whatsoever, nor have I heard any complaints about either of them.

[-] toothbrush 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Im searching for a solution too. You mentioned wprs, have you tried its predecessor xpra?

And theres always stuff like teamviever, rustdesk, and my personal favorite moonlight/sunshine, although all of these are for a slightly different usecase(full access to a remote desktop).

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago

I didn't try xpra because it's basically persistent X forwarding, and I already know that is way too slow. As far as I know Rustdesk, etc. are not rootless. I hadn't considered Moonlight/Sunshine (thought it was just for games) but I would guess that isn't rootless either?

[-] toothbrush 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Its not just for games, you can remote any program(or the entire desktop) with it. Not sure why they advertise it like that.

As for rootless: As far as I know you need some elevated Privileges to be able to capture Wayland, but it does not need to run as root. Not 100% sure though.

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 3 points 3 months ago

Sorry rootless in this context means it doesn't have a big window showing the whole remote desktop, instead each remote window shows up as if it were a local window. Nothing to do with the root account. Kind of confusing, sorry!

[-] toothbrush 1 points 3 months ago

Ah okay! No its not rootless, in fact it can only do fullscreen I think, thats why Im still searching for a better solution!

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago

That makes way more sense.

You aren't going to get the performance you are looking for doing that unfortunately. It just isn't possible to my knowledge.

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

I mean it's totally possible in theory. Do you just mean nobody has actually written something that does this?

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It is much more complex and has more overhead. You can do it but it will be slow.

Why do you want it to be a desktop window? Can't you just run it locally?

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

Yeah it's more complex. I don't think there's any more overhead though, and there's no reason it will be slow.

Can’t you just run it locally?

No, unfortunately not.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Xpra is pretty damn performant. It isn't as fast as something dedicated but it gets the job done.

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

Isn't it just basic X forwarding?

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Not really. It uses compression and some custom algorithms to minimize the data sent.

It will have way more performance than a raw X forward

[-] notabot@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

I normally just use X forwarding over ssh. For simple, X native, apps it usually works nicely, but if you're using something that draws its own UI (electron apps, browsers and the like often do) it'll be extremely painful or just fail.

I believe there is, or was, a way to run a vnc client rootless, but I think you needed to configure the server in a specific way too. It's been a long time since I tried though so things will have changed.

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

I'm using Questa which I believe is a Qt app. Remote X is just waaay too slow. The server is in a different country, but VMware VDI can display apps with no noticeable lag. (But that's pretty much its only redeeming feature.)

[-] camh@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago

The server is in a different country

You really need to have lead with that. I do what you want all the time, but it's to another port of the same switch.

Your problem is basically latency. X11 used to run fine on local 10Mb/s networks and that's no streth these days for WAN connections. What you won't be able to get past though is latency. How chatty is the protocol.

Anyway, I suggest you try xpra - that was on my list to try at one point but I haven't needed to. But it is meant to be for what you want and optimised for that. I wanted it so I could disconnect from the machine and reconnect later to resume, but I found it simpler to just do most things in the terminal and use tmux instead. I've been happy with that for years now.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago

You aren't going to get good performance with just X.

I would look into a dedicated solution like KasmVNC or maybe even Rustdesk with your own server.

Another option is Moonshine/Sunlight but it is mostly gaming focused.

[-] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

Kasmvnc?

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

VNC is horribly slow. Also hilariously insecure! I forgot about that...

[-] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

KasmVNC is basically a completely different solution. It's browser based, has authentication (although regular vnc does as well), and they've made significant improvements to performance by using libjpeg-turbo instead of the normal image libraries.

When using the docker containers (e.g. the webtop linuxservio oned), I noticed no lag for non-gpu accelerated sessions over the internet.

Edit: although it's not your definition of rootless though.

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

Yeah MJPEG isn't going to cut it, and as you say it's not rootless.

[-] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

Actually I just realized that's not true. it is possible to serve a single app via kasmvnc. It's still web based though.

It's quite fast, I recommend you try it.

https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-webtop/ -- these are all in one docker containers that include kasmvnc and some apps, but you can also deploy kasmvnc independently.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago

KasmVNC isn't really VNC

[-] ExperimentalGuy@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

This might be dumb, but what if you used parsec on the other machine?

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

Not rootless as far as I can tell.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago

What are you wanting?

[-] hellofriend@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

From what I understand, they're wanting what Cisco does on Windows. Programmes hosted on a server that appear on a remote client when run. Problem is, Cisco is also relatively slow and will never run as fast as a programme hosted on the client machine itself. The biggest hurdle is the network speed of the client.

this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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