Hello World,
Boosted by the success of our post about Ubuntu 14.04 and xrdp, we have spend some time in trying other Desktop Alternative. As you know, up to Ubuntu 12.04, it was possible to use Unity Desktop (even if it was the 2d version) as the xrdp desktop presented to the user. With 12.10, the Ubuntu -2d option being not anymore an option, we found as workaround that we could use the gnome classic (gnome fallback) desktop while connecting through xrdp.
since Ubuntu 13.10, the gnome-fallback desktop environment is kinda broken and cannot be used anymore in conjunction with Ubuntu. Again, we had to find a workaround and had to define another alternate desktop while connecting through xrdp.
For Ubuntu 14.04
- We have described how to use the xfce desktop interface in this post (see http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=5305)
- We have also described how to use the lxde desktop interface in this post (see http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=5357)
Again, based on the feedback of our users/colleagues/customers, the main complain was that these desktops (LXDE and XFCE) were not Unity or gnome classic desktop. So, we decided to test another Desktop Interface : MATE-Desktop Interface.
As you will see, the process is quite similar when installing xfce or lxde desktop….
Let’s do this !
Install XRDP Package from Ubuntu Repository
The first step is always the same. We will first install the xrdp package from the Ubuntu Repository. In order to perform the installation of the xrdp package, you will login into your ubuntu 14.04 machine. Open your Terminal console. In the Terminal, type the following command
sudo apt-get install xrdp
You will be prompted for your password
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You will be then informed about the package size. To proceed with the installation, press Y
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Wait for the completion
When done, you need to install an alternate desktop environment which will be in this case the MATE-Desktop
Installing the MATE Desktop environment
I think that the Ubuntu repository are offering the Mate-desktop version 1.6. For this post, we will be installing the mate-desktop 1.8. I had to google to see how to install mate-desktop 1.8. The most common way is to use the console and issue the following commands :
- sudo add-apt-repository “deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/archive/1.8/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main”
- wget -q http://mirror1.mate-desktop.org/debian/mate-archive-keyring.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add –
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get install mate-core mate-desktop-environment mate-notification-daemon
Wait for completion. When done, you should have the mate-desktop installed.
mate-desktop is a fork of the gnome 2. This is why this desktop is really close to the broken gnome-fallback package in Ubuntu.
Configure xrdp to use MATE desktop environment
At this stage, you have to configure your Ubuntu machine in order for xrdp to know that the LXDE desktop will be used instead of the Unity or Gnome (which are not working anymore in Ubuntu). To configure this, from the terminal console, you will issue the following command
echo mate-session> ~/.xsession
and then restart the xrdp service by issuing the following commandsudo service xrdp restart
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You are done and ready to perform your remote connection.
Test your xrdp connection
Now, you should have a basic xrdp working solution. You will need to tweak your xrdp configuration file in order to have it working accordingly. You will need to configure the keyboard layout if you are not using the english keyboard layout. You will need to tweak you configuration file in order to reconnect to the same session as well. We will discuss this afterwards. For the moment, we just wanna check that the xrdp functionality is working as expected.
To test your xrdp solution, find the ip address of your linux machine (or use the name if you have DNS Infrastructure in place). To find the ip address, issue the command
hostname -I
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Now go to your windows machine, start remote Desktop client and enter the ip address/name of your ubuntu machine
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You should see then the login screen of xrdp presented to you. Note that, at this screen (and because we have not configured keyboard layout yet), the keyboard layout is set to English by default.
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Enter your username and password and Press OK
You will see a dialog box showing the login process
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If everything is configured correctly,you should see your mate-desktop interface loading and you should be able to perform you work through this desktop environment.
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As you can see, this Desktop interface is quite similar to the classical gnome interface people were used to have in previous version of Ubuntu.
Note
To set Keyboard layout at the xrdp Login screen, perform the following steps
As explained above, with no special configuration, the xrdp login screen keyboard layout is set to english by default. if you need to change it to another keyboard layout, you should proceed with the following actions
This is the command you should issue in order to change the keyboard layout to be used during xrdp sessions…
Step 1 : You go to the /etc/xrdp directory
Step 2 : you issue the command setxkbmap -layout <%your layout%> to define which keyboard map/layout to use
Step 3 : create a copy of the km-0409.ini file into the same directory. It seems that this is the default file used by xrdp to define the keyboard layout. You will need to use sudo in order to be able to write into the directory
Step 4 : Check that you have a backup of your file by typing the dir or ls command
Step 5 : update the file by issuing the following command sudo xrdp-genkeymap km-0409.ini
Reconnect to the same session throug xrdp
You have mutliple ways to reconnect to the same session through xrdp. we have explained two of them. One method is based on performing a custom installation and use the X11VNC software. This is one is working well but requires a little bit more effort. (http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=4168)
The other one is to use the xrdp package from ubuntu repository and tweak some configuration files whil connected to the session. This solution is really a workaround and it’s not our favourite one. (see http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=4471)
We have also presented a third method in the last post about xrdp and ubuntu 14.04 (see http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=5305). In this third method, we will be again using the default xrdp package available from the Ubuntu repository. We simply need to change the /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini file in order to get access to the same session each time
To edit the file, issue the following command
sudo gedit /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini
You might be prompted for a password. if this is the case, provide the password and Press enter. When the file is open, locate the section [xrdp1] and replace the following line
port=-1
with the line
port=ask-1
Save the file. The file should look like this
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When done, restart the xrdp service by issuing the following command
sudo service xrdp restart.
You are done.
When trying to access your Ubuntu machine through via the remote desktop client, you will see that the xrdp login screen has indeed an additional field called port.
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If this is your first connection, leave the default value in the port field (i.e. -1), you will be then connecting through xrdp to your ubuntu machine using a specified port that can be seen on the login process dialog box.
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Take a note of this port.
When you need to reconnect, you will have to specify the same port as your first connection and you should see the same screen as you left it.
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Note : This tip has been provided to us by one of our reader (Thank you Wei 🙂 )
Final Notes
As you can see, this Desktop interface is quite similar to the classical gnome interface people were used to have in previous version of Ubuntu. However, I’m still disappointed because we cannot use the same desktop interface (i.e. Unity) while using xrdp software. Canonical/Ubuntu/xrdp teams should come up with a solution.
For me, xrdp is probably the best option to have remote access to Linux (and thus Ubuntu) machines. It’s one of the the best solution if you have mixed infrastructure (Windows and Linux. It’s free,easy to install and easy to use. So, I hope that Ubuntu team or xrdp team will come up with a solution where we can remotely connect to a Ubuntu machine and have the Unity Interface or Gnome-Shell interface available. We need consistency between local access and remote access.
If you install xrdp on Fedora, you will see that really easy to install and when connected through xrdp, you will have the Gnome Shell Desktop interface (yes, the same as the local one). Moreover, Fedora has done a great job because you do not need to configure anything in order to reconnect to the same session. It just works!
I wish to have the same in Ubuntu.
Till next Time
See ya
This was a great solution, thank you. I needed to change the “add repository” language some but I much prefer MATE to the other solutions.
Hello Todd,
Indeed, I think this is the better option/workaround so far to work with Ubuntu and Xrdp
Till next time
See ya
Hi,
Hi Todd,
Great work ! In the past, I have followed and applied your solutions to previous versions of ubuntu. And, again, you came to the rescue 🙂
Just two quick notes about some typos: a) the 2nd and 3rd items of the “Installing the MATE Desktop environment” section should be only one (wget -q http://mirror1.mate-desktop.org/debian/mate-archive-keyring.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -) ; b) in the “Configure xrdp to use LXDE desktop environment” section, how about having some white space before “sudo service xrdp restart” ?
Please keep up the good work ! This xrdp+ubuntu thing is hellish !
jR
hey jose
i ll fix the typo….
till next time
see ya
Hi
Pretty great post and very interesting. But wonder, could it be install the same way directly on Centos 7 ?
Thanks
Hello there,
We do not have a good knowledge of CentOS but we assume that yes this should be working on CentOS as long as the required packages are available
Hope this help
Thank for the visit
Till next time
See ya
Hello,
I had Mate desktop already installed before I come to your page so I have just installed xrdp, added session and restart. When I try to connect from win 7, I’m presented with gray screen.
Thanks
Alex
Hello Alex,
I do not know….You do not really provide useful info…
Can you provide us the OS Linux version,the content of your .xsession file, check for typo/error in name of the file or inside the file
How to you try to connect (which options are you using in the xrdp login…)
Have you check the logs xsession or xrdp log to get a little bit more inside ?
Provide us with some more info and you might be able to help you
Till next time
See ya
Hello,
Thank you for comments.
I have re-executed the the whole process as you have describe it and now everything is working for me. Actually I use :
ubunto 14.04 LTS
the content of xsession is: mate-session
in the xrdp login i used the default (sesman-xvnc).
Thanks
Alex
Hi
I am using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I have installed xrdp and when I try to install MATE after issuing the first command in the above post i.e.
sudo add-apt-repository “deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/archive/1.8/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main”
I am getting the following error:
Error: need a single repository as argument
Can anyone please help how to proceed?
Thanks
Shankar
Hello Shankar,
I’m assuming that you have performed a copy/pase operation. We have noticed that this leads to situation where some characters are not copied correctly
Can you try this command sudo add-apt-repository “deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/archive/1.8/ubuntu trusty main”
if this command is not working can you try the following
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-core mate-desktop-environment mate-notification-daemon
ps: mate is officially supported by ubuntu and it seems that the package for ubuntu is not available anymore on the http://repo-mate-desktop.org/…..
Let us know if this is working so we update the post
Hope this help
Till next time
see ya
I have and error:
E: Unable to locate package mate-core
E: Unable to locate package mate-desktop-environment
when add the repository, any help…griffon?
thanks a lot
Hi Peter,
I do not know what you are doing but if i perform a clean install of ubuntu 14.10 and issues these two commands
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-core mate-desktop-environment mate-notification-daemon
It works like a charm…. I have tested twice these command and this is working
Can you try to issue the following command to have a basic mate desktop interface sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment-core
To have a more complete mate desktop, try this sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment
hope this help
till next time
see ya
So, I wanted to swtich from XFE4 to Mate and see if that worked better (logout and some other small issues) but am unable to “find” the repository. Doing a couple of searches lead me to this rather quickly..
http://mate-desktop.org/blog/2014-09-25-debian-and-ubuntu-repositories-removed/
which then points to:
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mate-dev/+archive/ubuntu/trusty-mate
Not being a complete linux guy, I ran the first to commands to add the repositories, but then stopped. I don’t want to switch the console, only what I use when using XRDP. I feel like I should be adding the repositories (as I did) and then continuing with your bullet #3.
Any suggestions? Seems like this needs an update now that the packages have been removed from the location in the current instructions.
Thanks
(Sorry if duplicate, my post seems to be missing). I was trying to update to use Mate instead of XFE4 and had the issue where I can not get the files. Upon some investigation (first just navigating the structure) I didn’t see the archive area for Ubuntu. Then I found this:
http://mate-desktop.org/blog/2014-09-25-debian-and-ubuntu-repositories-removed/
That will then point you to:
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mate-dev/+archive/ubuntu/trusty-mate
I added the repositories, but stopped there.. Not being totally linux savy, I was concerned I would change my default desktop, I only really want to change for XRDP. Seems for 14.04 (and others as the location appears to have changed for them for 1.6 Mate) these need an update.
Any help would be appreciated!! 🙂
Hello Travis,
Sorry for the late answer….
please review the following posts :
install xrdp on ubuntu 14.10 (section related to MATE Desktop) – http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=5874
and this is a quick demo for xrdp and ubuntu 14.10 where you can reconnect to the same session using the out-of-the-box xrdp package : http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=6063
Please review also the xrdp section of the blog where you can find more information about xrdp/vnc/noVNC connection
When installing the MATE destkop, you simply adding a new desktop interface. At the end of the procedure, you can actually choose which desktop interface you wanna use when working locally
Hope this help
Till next time
See ya
sudo add-apt-repository “deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/archive/1.8/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main”
wget -q http://mirror1.mate-desktop.org/debian/mate-archive-keyring.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add –
Please can u upgrade the links, this is broken links,
Thank you
Hello there,
As soon as we have some time we will try to update the post and reflect the fact that mate-desktop is now hosted on the Ubuntu Repositories
Till next time
See ya
Greetings!
Users can not log off. In Task Manager, users can hang even though he ended session
Hello there,
This can is a know issue. You can use the command line to logoff your users. When connected via xrdp, it seems that the logoff/shutdown/restart options might not work as expected.
However, as we are testing the version 15.04, it’s seems that these issues are being resolved. We have succesfully logoff and reboot the machine while working via the xrdp session
Hope this help
Best Regards
about change in installing mate
http://mate-desktop.org/blog/2014-09-25-debian-and-ubuntu-repositories-removed/
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mate-dev/+archive/ubuntu/trusty-mate
These MATE 1.8.1 packages for *only* Ubuntu Trusty, they have been side ported from Debian.
In order to correctly install and configure MATE 1.8.1 on Ubuntu Trusty you will also need to add the following PPA:
* ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/ppa
Open a terminal complete the following steps to enable the appropriate PPAs and install MATE 1.8.1 on Ubuntu Trusty.
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/ppa
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/trusty-mate
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install –no-install-recommends ubuntu-mate-core ubuntu-mate-desktop
Just wanted to share a little tip:
My Environment : Using WIndows RDP Client from Windows 7 Standard to connect to Ubuntu 14.04 Virtual instance hosted on a Win 2008 Hyper V.
All these steps worked out good (Thanks to Griffon otherwise which I wouldn’t have reached this far), except that when I log off
1) all the items (accessible only in a login session) disappear. – Expected
2) The desktop wall paper still remains there visible. – Not Expected
3) The RDP window doesn’t close by itself.- Not Expected
4) the Xvnc session still remains there – Not Expected.
What I did to fix this:
1) sudo nano /etc/xrdp/sesman.ini
2) Replaced
KillDisconnected=0
with
KillDisconnected=1
3) Ctrl +X followed by a Y and Enter
3) sudo service xrdp restart
Cheers
Hello Sekhar
Thank you for sharing the information about xrdp. Yes, it’s true that they are some additional parameters that can be used to control the xrdp session. however, note that based on your version some of this parameters will be ignored because not yet implemented in the xrdp code
Till next time
See ya
HI Griffon:
I install MATE env 1.8.2, The sidebar (like menu) is missing, i can’t see anything.
When i install successfully,i find sidebar missing,but it is ok when i do somethins (maybe reboot the ubuntu,or close xrdp and open again).When i change xrdp1 port from -1 to ask-1, the sidebar missing again after restart xrdp,so what ‘s problem?
Hello Andy,
First comment : you should upgrade to ubuntu 14.10 or 15.04 or install the latest xrdp package from ubuntu repository so you do not need to perform any actions in order to reconnect to existing session (check XRDP – Reconnect to existing sessions made easier – New xrdp package on Ubuntu repository and check XRDP – Quick Demo Installation & Reconnection
The Other comment is about MATE Desktop….I do not understand what you mean by sidebar. If you mean the bar located on the left side when you connect locally on your ubuntu using unity desktop), there is no such bar when you perform an xrdp session on ubuntu. Unity Shell is not supported by xrdp this is why you have to install the mate-desktop environment ….
review the following post for the most recent version of the post about xrdp….XRDP – Installing XRDP on Ubuntu 15.04
hope this help
till next time
see ya
simply thank this horrible LXDE is away
from Bavaria
hele
Hello There;
Thank you for the feedback and you visit….we will try to keep posting useful stuff
So, Till next time
See ya