Tag Archives: remote access

RDP connection to Linux

Going down one rabbit hole or another last night, I somewhat randomly found an article detailing how to install and access a graphical desktop UI on the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

The gist of it is

  1. Update your packages.
  2. Install the xfce4 package and optionally, xfce4-goodies (one imagines this would work for other desktops as well)
  3. Install xrdp
  4. Change the port (the default RDP port is used for connecting to the shell)
  5. Start xrdp
  6. Launch an RDP to localhost, using the new port number.

It’s a neat trick, but I’m not sure how much use I have for it. Most of what I do with WSL (e.g. running various Linux utilities) is command-line oriented. A GUI just adds extra steps. Plus, because of the way WSL works, you have to restart xrdp any time you restart Windows. That’s already a nuisance with XAMPP.

But that one step, installing xrdp. I might have a use case for that. I keep a couple Linux VMs around for things where I do want a GUI, and it’s also a nuisance having to launch the Hyper-V manager in order to connect. If I could just leave the VM running in the background and RDP to it as needed…. that would be helpful.