What is the best remote desktop tool to connect to Windows from Ubuntu?

13,544

Solution 1

Ubuntu ships by default with tsclient. It works pretty well for me.

Solution 2

You can try remmina. While it uses the same backend as tsclient and friends (the backend being rdesktop). It has a more pleasing UI when compared to tsclient.

Solution 3

Try rdesktop

. A typical command looks like this

rdesktop 192.168.1.23 -k de -g 1500x1150  -r disk:mydisk=/home/soma

Parameters:

-k de............................ set keyboard layout
-g 1500x1........................ set resolution of the rdesktop window
-r disk:mydisk=/home/soma.........share your home directory with the remote machine

Solution 4

KRDC, which comes as part of Kubuntu, allows better control of the appearance of the remote window than just using rdesktop or tsclient. In particular, it allows a full screen view that you can minimise, unlike the other two, which (as far as I can tell) require you to log out to return to your Ubuntu session if you are using full screen.

Solution 5

'rdesktop' seems to work pretty well in general. If you miss ClearType fonts (like I do), then this might solve your problem:

http://katastrophos.net/andre/blog/2008/03/10/rdesktop-connect-to-windows-vista-with-cleartype-font-smoothing-enabled/

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13,544

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Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

Khaja Minhajuddin over 1 year

I've used rdesktop in the past. Is there something better?
- Oxwivi over 12 years
  
  With 11.10, tsclient is no longer ships. Instead the Remote Desktop Viewer, or Vinagre, now supports RDP.
JamShady almost 14 years

I find it's not as polished as the windows equivalent. Remote desktop feels much better on the windows remote desktop tool.
WalterJ89 almost 14 years

Although TightVNC or any VNC doesnt really compair to remote desktop it is probably a good method. There are just things vnc can't to that remote desktop does.
Khaja Minhajuddin almost 14 years

yeah, Teamviewer is good but it needs to be running on both the computers, I wanted something which was closer to "RDP"
prule almost 14 years

I use Remmina since it allows me to control the depth of colour easily - I found this made a HUGE performance improvement (using a low colour depth of 256 colours) when remote controlling a computer in New Zealand from Australia. Really was unusable using Remote Desktop Viewer, although if you know how, you can probably control the colour depth with all of them. Remmina made it easy.
vaquito almost 14 years

@Walter, such as?
Oxwivi over 12 years

@levesque It's just a frontend for rdesktop, so if you use that, you're getting basically the same thing.