Hello World, Show In our previous post, we have quickly demonstrated how to perform the installation of Pop!_OS. Pop!_OS is the Linux Distribution developped by System76 and based on Ubuntu. The post was written because a lot of people were asking me/suggesting me to perform an installation and give it a try. Pop!_OS is providing a really nice user experience and the look n theme provided is indeed refreshing and polished. The next most popular request we have received related to Pop!_OS operating system was to quickly provide a simple step by step guide on how to install the Linux Remote Desktop solution (i.e. xRDP software) on top of Pop!_OS and have it configured accordingly. So, this post will explain exactly that. Lets do this.. OverviewSince we have received a lot of request about installing and configuring xRDP software on top of Pop!_OS, we will provide the necessary steps to perform the installation and post-configuration actions needed to have it working. If you are following us for a long time, you problaby know about xRDP software, its purpose and how to install it either manually or automatically using the script we are providing. Since our xrdp-installer script is not supporting (yet?) Pop!_OS, we will perform the xRDP installation manually on the Pop!_OS operating system. So, lets go !!! Prerequisites and assumptionsThe following conditions should be met in order to have the best results while using the script
Basic Installation ProcessInstalling the xRDP packageThe manual installation is quite straight forward. You simply need to open a terminal console and execute some commands. The manual installation process will be using the xRDP packages available in the Official Pop!_OS Repository. To perform your installation, you simply need to issue the following command sudo apt-get install xrdp If requested, please provide the password and press Enter to Proceed with the installation  Click on Picture for Better Resolution If prompted, please confirm the installation process Click on Picture for Better Resolution To check xRDP version, open a Terminal console and issue the following command xrdp -v Click on Picture for Better Resolution At this stage, you should be able to perform an remote desktop session but you will not enjoy a seamless user experience. We will explain later in this posts how to perform the post configuration actions in order to avoid small annoyance while performing the remote desktop connection. Test your xRDP connection (no post configuration settings yet !!!)Important !!! Before trying to perform a remote connection to your Pop!_OS computer, no one must be logged on on the machine. Please ensure that the user account that will be used to perform the remote session that this user account is not logged locally on the computer. This is by design. A same user account can be connected either locally or remotely but not both at the same time. If you see a black screen when performing the remote desktop connection, this means that the user account performing the remote connection is also logged on locally on the Pop!_OS machine. So, please logoff from the Pop!_OS machine.. Click on Picture for Better Resolution To test your xRDP connection, open your favourite remote Desktop Client.Provide the hostname or ip address of the Pop!_OS computer and press the connection button Click on picture for better Resolution You will be prompted with a certificate warning. Press OK to proceed You will be then presented with the xRDP login page (with a green background) Click on Picture for Better Resolution Provide the credentials and press OK. If everything is OK, you should see your Pop!_OS desktop presented to you. However, after a few seconds, you will see some dialog box prompting Provide the credentials and Press OK in order to proceed. Click on Picture for Better Resolution Again, after some time, you might see an additional Dialog Box popup. Provide the credentials and Press OK in order to proceed Click on Picture for Better Resolution If you try to open the Software center (or Pop!_Shop) application, you might also see the following dialog box showing up Click on Picture for Better Resolution
Finally, if you pay a little bit more attention, you will also notice that the lookn feel (theme) of the Desktop is not exactly the same as the one you see when logged on locally on your Pop!_OS machine. Click on Picture for Better Resolution
Post Configuration SetupImplementing Polkit Rules for xRDP on Pop!_OSAs mentioned above, with no additional configuration on your Pop!_OS machine, you will see a number of popups while working in your remote session. By tweaking your system slightly and generating custom polkit rules, we can prevent these popups to showing up To create these polkit rules, login locally on the Pop!_OS machine and copy/paste the following command in your Terminal console and Press Enter.You might be prompted for your password. Provide your credentials in order to proceed sudo bash -c "cat >/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/45-allow.colord.pkla" <<EOF [Allow Colord all Users] Identity=unix-user:* Action=org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-profile;org.freedesktop.color-manager.delete-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.delete-profile;org.freedesktop.color-manager.modify-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.modify-profile ResultAny=no ResultInactive=no ResultActive=yes EOF Then, copy/paste the following code and press Enter sudo bash -c "cat >/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/46-allow-update-repo.pkla" <<EOF [Allow Package Management all Users] Identity=unix-user:* Action=org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-sources-refresh;org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-network-proxy-configure ResultAny=yes ResultInactive=yes ResultActive=yes EOF Click on Picture for Better Resolution Fixing the Theme and Desktop Lookn FeelTo fix the Desktop lookn feel, you will simply copy/paste the following commands in the terminal console #Backup the file before modifying it sudo cp /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh.griffon sudo sed -i "4 a #Improved Look n Feel Method\ncat <<EOF > ~/.xsessionrc\nexport GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=$GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE\nexport XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP\nexport XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS\nEOF\n" /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh Click on Picture for Better Resolution Test again your XRDP connectionAfter making all these small tweaks, you should be able to access your Pop!_OS session with no dialog box and presenting you the same lookn feel as the one available when logged on locally Click on Picture for Better Resolution Final NotesVoila ! This is it ! In this post, we have been able to perform a simple installation of xRDP package in order to provide remote desktop capabilities. We have also tweaked a little bit the Pop!_OS system in order to have a seamless user experience. As you have seen, its really not too difficult to have remote desktop capabilities enabled on a Pop!_OS machine. If you are following us since a long time, you know that we have developed the xrdp-installer script that automate installation and post configuration actions of xRDP. The script was not used here because its actually support (so far !!) only Ubuntu Operating system. As a new version of Ubuntu is about to be released, we will probably release a new version of the xrdp-installer and we might include support for Pop!_Os. Till next time See ya |
