# Which remote desktop protocol to use for FreeBSD VM/VPS?



## mikepwagner (May 6, 2016)

I am thinking of renting a freeBSD VM/VPS from some place like Digital Ocean, RootBSD, or CloudSigma to experiment and see if how well the software I'd like to use works on fFreeBSD. I have an Ubuntu box at home, and I make heavy use of two programs gnucash and lilypond (a music engraving program). My use of gnucash uses postgres for backing store. I see that ports/pkgs for all of those programs are available for fFreeBSD, and I'd like to play with them for a month or so and see how they work.

My thought is to experiment using a cloud VM/VPS to see how well these work, and if they work well, think about moving them to fFreeBSD/PC-BSD on a box at my house.

I's also like to play around with cloud VMs/VPSs jut because I am curious.

I am trying to figure out the best way to get the fFreeBSD desktop to my local machine. I have a work supplied Windows box at home and use x2go to connect to my main development environment, which is a VM running Suse Linux. I have really been impressed with x2go performance - it's been a very nice and reliable environment. It has been head and shoulders above the way I recall VNC working - but in truth, I haven't used VNC in years.

I have been looking at what remote desktop servers are available for freeBSD, and I am getting a confused picture. It looks like various NX protocol servers were ported at one time, but those have pretty much died off. It looks like there is not an x2goserver port or package.

If I understand what's currently available, there appear to be three ways to go: VNC, some rdp server (xrdg, x11rdp), or X11 forwarding through ssh. My sense is that lot of what I like about the x2go environment is that it compresses the X protocol so performance is very good. It seems as though none of the options that are available for fFreeBSD will perform as well as xtgo. Is all of that correct?

Which of these is likely to have the best performance over a broadband network?

(My neighbourhood is about to get Google GigaBit and AT&T GigaPower, which may help in any case.)

Thanks,
Mike


----------



## Deleted member 9563 (May 6, 2016)

I don't have a direct answer for you, but I use VPSs a lot and would note that the template you get is not likely to include a desktop so you will have to install that remotely. Others here can perhaps shed some light on how to do that. Personally, the idea of using a remote desktop to control a server sounds a bit odd.


----------



## mikepwagner (May 6, 2016)

OJ said:


> I don't have a direct answer for you, but I use VPSs a lot and would note that the template you get is not likely to include a desktop so you will have to install that remotely. Others here can perhaps shed some light on how to do that. Personally, the idea of using a remote desktop to control a server sounds a bit odd.



Thanks - maybe I didn't explain myself clearly, but I am not really looking to run a server. I would like to experiment with a cloud VM/VPS - mostly to see how the software I use works on freeBSD. If it works well on freeBSD, I will in all likelihood install pcBSD on a cheap laptop. 

I am only interested in using a freeBSD VM/VPS because those are cheap and readily available.

I have thought of renting an IaaS VM and installing pcBSD, but I am not sure what that make a desktop any easier. I haven't checked recently - maybe I should - but pcBSD didn't have much more in the way of ports/pkgs than freeBSD the last time Iooked.

Mike


----------



## mikepwagner (May 6, 2016)

I have just found a remote windowing protocol called "xpra" which looks like it might do what I want. It look like I could ssh into the VM/VPS, and then use xpra to start the app that I am interested in, and attach to the xpra session from my client box. Does anyone have any idea about the performance of xpra?

Mike


----------



## forquare (May 6, 2016)

mikepwagner said:


> Thanks - maybe I didn't explain myself clearly, but I am not really looking to run a server.



No, but most VPS providers who have FreeBSD on their list will be expecting you to use it as a server and more than likely will not include a desktop as part of the installation.



mikepwagner said:


> I have thought of renting an IaaS VM and installing pcBSD, but I am not sure what that make a desktop any easier. I haven't checked recently - maybe I should - but pcBSD didn't have much more in the way of ports/pkgs than freeBSD the last time Iooked.



PC-BSD is basically FreeBSD packed up with the bits that give you a desktop out of the box. Other than that they are basically the same. 

--

Personally I've not used any remote desktop protocols, whenever I've needed to I've just X forwarded specific applications…


----------



## mikepwagner (May 6, 2016)

forquare said:


> No, but most VPS providers who have FreeBSD on their list will be expecting you to use it as a server and more than likely will not include a desktop as part of the installation.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Have you found X forwarding (presumably with compression) to perform pretty well over broadband connections?

Thanks,

Mike


----------



## forquare (May 6, 2016)

mikepwagner said:


> Have you found X forwarding (presumably with compression) to perform pretty well over broadband connections?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mike



Certainly not close to native speed, but certainly usable


----------



## fossette (May 16, 2016)

If you want to test your apps with FreeBSD, why not use your own computer?  No need to install anything if you boot from a USB key and have some common storage to share your files.  Or perhaps just buy another disk drive, and install FreeBSD on it?  It would surly be paid by itself compared to the subscription services.

That being said, thanks for mentioning xpra.  I'll look into it as an alternative.  From many Internet searches, I could only find two solutions.  VNC or a connection to a X display.  VNC being preferred in most articles because it has less overhead in transit than X connections.  Also something to consider, RootBSD, a service you referred to is providing VNC themselves.  There must be a good reason for that...  Simplicity?  Efficiency?  Flexibility?

I'll myself find out soon enough as I'm currently setting up a remote FreeBSD desktop.  I intend to use `ssh` for quick command line apps, and VNC for a nice desktop environment setup to my liking.

Dominique.


----------



## fossette (May 16, 2016)

Oh!  another possibility is running FreeBSD as a VM using VirtualBOX on any of your computers that has enough resources (memory, disk).  I love VirtualBOX!

Dominique.


----------

