Hello World, 

Since Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release, we have been working a lot on improving the installation and configuration process of xRDP package on Ubuntu.    xRDP software allow a user to perform a remote desktop connection through rdp protocol on a Linux machine.  This blog contains a lot of information about xRDP and how to perform the installation.  a bunch of scripts have also been developed in order to ease the installation and configuration tasks.  

With the release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS version and our latest published script (see here and here), it’s look like it time to explain the difference between the standard installation script, the custom installation script and the different script build numbers. So, this post will be updated each time we will release a new version of the script. This will allow us and our readers to keep track of the latest version of the script and which improvements have been made.

Let’s do this….!

Std Install Script vs Custom Install Script

When we first started to play around with xRDP software, we were running Ubuntu 10 or Ubuntu 11.0. Recently, Canonical has released the latest Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.  Through the Ubuntu release cycle, different versions of the script have been developed.  Through this blog, you will see basically two version/type of script 

• Custom installation script  (means installation from sources)
• Standard installation script (means installation from packages available on Ubuntu repository)

Custom Installation Script 

Initially, xRDP and Ubuntu were not playing well together and only obsolete xrdp packages were available in the Ubuntu repository (version 0.6). Because of this  we have developed our first xrdp installation script.  This is what we have called the custom installation script because the installation process is not using the “obsolete” xrdp package but rather use the source code to compile the xrdp software on top of Ubuntu Operating system

Ubuntu 16.04 edition still ships with an old version of xrdp package (i.e. version 0.6.x). This package does not support remote access to Unity Desktop and there is a need to install an alternate desktop environment in order to remote connect to the Ubuntu 16.04 machine.   Because the custom installation script perform an installation from the sources, it will basically install the latest version of xRDP package which can then support Unity and other features.

So, if you are running Ubuntu 16.04, it would be recommended to use the custom installation script in order to get the best of the xRDP software.

Standard Installation Script

Recent releases of Ubuntu (starting from Ubuntu 17.10 and later), a more recent version of the xRDP package is available through the Ubuntu repository.  Because the most recent package version was available and because Canonical has moved away from Unity to Gnome Desktop, we have started developing the standard installation script.  The standard installation means that we are simply using the Ubuntu package to perform the installation.  The standard script goes a step further as it helps in performing additional configuration tasks that provide a better user experience. 

Script Version & Build Number

Through the Ubuntu release cycle, the different version of the script have been updated and slowly improvements and new features have been added in to the script.  This section provide the build number of the different script and mention which Ubuntu version is supported. 

From now on, we will follow the support cycle of Ubuntu.  This means simply that if an Ubuntu version reach end of support status, the script will remove support for obsolete Ubuntu editions 

Standard Installation Script Versioning

The following table shows the different versions of the standard installation script.

version	Supported Ubuntu Version	Features
Std-Xrdp-Install-0.5.1sh	18.04,18.10	Added U18.10 and Yaru theme support
Std-Xrdp-Install-0.5.sh	18.04	Added sound redirection
Std-Xrdp-Install-0.4.sh	17.10, 18.04	Added gdm lock screen color fix
Std-Xrdp-Install-0.3.sh	17.10, 18.04	Added Fix for theme and extensions
Std-Xrdp-Install-0.2.sh	17.10, 18.04	Added Fix for Polkit issues
Std-Xrdp-Install-0.1.sh	17.10	Initial version for Standard Installation

Custom Installation Script Versioning

The following table shows the different versions of the custom installation script.

version	Supported Ubuntu Version	Features
install-xrdp-2.2.sh	18.04,18.10	Added U18.10 and Yaru theme support
install-xrdp-2.1.sh	18.04	Added all features supported in Std-Xrdp-install.05.sh
install-xrdp-2.0.sh	17.10	added support Ubuntu 17.10 and Gnome Desktop
install-xrdp-1.9.2.sh	16.04.x	cleanup code, multiple user session config
install-xrdp-1.9.1.sh	16.04.3	Multipe fixes
install-xrdp-1.9.sh	16.04.2	Add Polkit code and fix .xsession to start Unity
install-xrdp-1.8.sh	16.04.2	fixing missing fontutil.h file
install-xrdp-1.7.sh	16.04.2	add support drive redirection and clibpoard
install-xrdp-1.6.sh	16.04.2	add support for drive redirection
install-xrdp-1.5.sh	16.04	improve keyboard configuration
install-xrdp-1.4.sh	15.04,15.10	add support for systemd instead of upstart
install-xrdp-1.3.sh	15.04	add support for Ubuntu 15.04
install-xrdp-1.2.sh	14.04,14.10	using mate desktop instead of Unity
install-xrdp-1.1.sh	14.04	First published version

In the near future,  you will be able to download the different scripts version at this location. 

Final Notes

As Ubuntu 16.04.x is still supported and will be supported till 2021 we might update the custom installation script through the coming updates as needed.  Since Ubuntu 18.04 is a long term support, our goal would be to focus our effort on this version and we will try to improve the installation script.   At this stage, we will still keep two different branch : Standard installation versus Custom installation.   However, in the future, we might want to merge these branches and come up with a single installation script that would offer the option to perform a standard installation or a custom installation.. Do not ask when this will be done because we do not know if it will happen and if we will have time to perform such merge operation. 

Till next time 

See ya