The screen is grey blank when connecting ubuntu through Windows's remote desktop

Question

I installed the xrdp on the ubuntu 14.04 desktop and I followed instructions in Blank desktop when logging in via xrdp, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1899111&page=2 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xrdp/+bug/1069272, but after I successfully log in from Windows 7 remote desktop, the screen is:

Any idea? Thanks a lot.

PS: Let's restrict the question to Windows's remote desktop + xrdp on the ubuntu 14.04.

Solution 1

It is a bug of xrdp when using it to connect to ubuntu 14.04. See here. The only thing we can do about it now is to wait until xrdp developers show some mercy by starting to think of fixing this bug. Please help me by clicking "this bug affects you" and "subscribe this bug" link of the above launchpad page to increase the bug heat. Thanks.

Solution 2

Just xrdp gives your RDC just what is it there, bare X server. To see "desktop", menus, icons etc you need to have some windows manager / desktop environment installed and started. Please elaborate which of them did you install.

The proper way is to edit X startup configuration files -- there are plenty, change often so I can't answer what is file name without your help. For example, my server with xrdp has ~/.xsession file containing xfce4-session and ~/.xinitrc-fvwm has

xsetroot -solid "#0E6E6E"
xset s 600 600 s blank
xset -dpms

As a workaround for 1 particular time I am connecting via ssh and start startx &, this does the rest of magic (menus, panels, icons appear).

Comments

[user280121]

I installed package "ubuntu-desktop". The contents of ~/.xsession file is gnome-session --session=ubuntu-2d. Where do you run startx &? Do you put it in the ~/.xsession file?

[Vladimir Kovalchuk]

So xrdp cannot show unity 3d (with just RDP) and you tried ubuntu 2d. In the launchpad bug 1069272 they say "Ubuntu has removed unity 2d support in 12.10". So I suggest to try echo "gnome-session --session=gnome" > ~/.xsession 2nd option is to use VNC; you select vnc-any, xrdp internally connects to it then convert its output to RDP (yes that's not optimal).

[user280121]

Changing to "gnome-session --session=gnome" does not work. What do you mean by "you select vnc-any"?

[user280121]

Thanks. do you mean gnome-session-fallback? I installed it, but does not work. It turns out that it is a bug of xrdp on ubuntu 14.04 which is the version I am using. The only way out is to wait for xrdp developers to show some mercy by fixing this bug.

[obsolesced]

In the meantime, you could try a different desktop, like xfce, which seems to work with xrdp.