This is a tricky one … what is the best way to remotely control a Windows machine (since you have to use those) from Ubuntu? There are many many many options, but I found one that I like (most of the time). It’s called Remmina (read all the way through to get to my gripe(s) at the end).
Installation
I took these steps from here … for us Ubuntu users, here is the short version (using snap, because … it’s a snap). Open a terminal and type:
sudo snap install remminaTo fix issues related to running in the snap environment (I only use the last two):
sudo snap connect remmina:avahi-observe :avahi-observe # servers discovery
sudo snap connect remmina:cups-control :cups-control # printing
sudo snap connect remmina:mount-observe :mount-observe # mount management
sudo snap connect remmina:password-manager-service :password-manager-service # password managerUsage
Then launch it by hitting your “super” (ie. Windows) key and searching for “remmina”.
It’s all fairly self explanatory, but the settings I use as default (by changing them on my first connection profile and clicking “Save as Default”) are:
- Basic
- Group (this is nice, it will group all RDP connections from the same group into one window with tabs)
- Protocol (RDP … I have another cool program called Termius for SSH connections, I’ll do a write up and link that soon)
- Shared Folder (for transferring files)
- Resolution: Use client resolution
- Network connection type: LAN
- Advanced
- Quality: Best
After making a connection I’d recommend clicking the “Toggle dynamic resolution update” button on the left side (should be the 6th one from the top). This way the connection’s resolution adapts to the Remmina window size.
Gripe(s)
Remmina will sometimes lose the ability to copy/paste items from the RDP session to Ubuntu (it fails for all Remmina connections, but only from Remmina to Ubuntu, Ubuntu to Remmina seems to work just fine) . This gets really annoying and the only solution I’ve found is to close out of Remmina entirely (close the program from the top bar menu icon, where the power icon lives). This seems to clear out whatever bug caused the problem (I suspect it has to do with too much data or specifically formatted being copied during a prior copy/paste operation).
The other, more minor, gripe is that Remmina will sometimes lose saved passwords. But, hey, that’s why you have a password manager (I _ _ _ _ passwords).