[arch-general] Arch Linux PC as a Remote Desktop Node

[Foxtrot Mike]

On 07/28/2018 02:52 AM, cyelae via arch-general wrote:
> On 2018-07-27 19:07, Foxtrot Mike via arch-general wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Currently we have around 10 employees who develop software using Visual
>> Studio. The idea is to install the development tools on the Windows
>> Server system, and to have all the developers connect to the server over
>> RDP using low-end low-power computers. The server is pretty beefy
>> though. The low end client PCs will save up-front cost as well as power
>> bills. The network backend will not have any issue with the increased
>> RDP traffic.
>
> I'm not sure about the auth part given my little experience with it, 
> but if you're going to log into a server via RDP, can't you simply 
> have your lightweight machine automatically open a default session 
> [1], connect to the windows server, and authenticate users there?
You mean I should have something like a guest account on Linux for 
opening an X session, and then the RDP application would connect to the 
Windows Server and ask for Windows Domain password? I think it could be 
done, but I'll have to severely limit the guest account from security 
point of view.
>
> If you're going to only have one app running on the client machines, 
> you don't need a window manager; xinit do that [2] [3]
I tried opening Firefox using init, without any window manager. Firefox 
did open but there were some issues with graphics. Such as upon right 
clicking, the options menu wouldn't show. Also, youtube for some reason 
didn't show any thumbnail. After some research it seemed that directly 
running an application from xinit without a window manager is not a good 
idea if the application is graphically complex.
>
> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinit#Autostart_X_at_login
> [2] 
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinit#Starting_applications_without_a_window_manager
> [3] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=107319