Do kde developers expect everyone to just use waypipe and forget about using vnc/rdp if kwin is running in headless mode?

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On both OpenSuse Tumbleweed and FreeBSD, krfb-virtualmonitor will crash if I do this:

kwin_wayland --virtual &
export WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0
krfb-virtualmonitor --resolution 1920x1080 --port 5900 --name some_name --password some_password

It won’t immediately crash, but if I try to access kwin by using the bVNC client on my android smartphone, krfb-virtualmonitor will crash. There is no such thing as krdp-virtualmonitor, so I can’t use an rdp server when kwin is running in headless mode. Of course, waypipe is a great tool, but I can only use it as a client on machines running a wayland compositor. My smartphone, however, can’t run a wayland compositor… I showed you the commands that I used to start headless kwin/vnc. Maybe I made a mistake in them? If I didn’t, then I can only conclude that kde developers want everyone to use waypipe (on client devices capable of running wayland compositors, and android smartphones/tablets are not such devices) and forget about the headless kwin/vnc (or rdp) combination.

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Hi - I updated your post for the “backticks” to get terminal commands/preformatted text to show up more legibly.

Have these crashes been reported via Bugzilla?

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My understanding is that work on RDP support has started over year ago.

See the initial announcement and a follow up earlier this year.

There even seems to be a thread here on Discuss.

Don’t know if SDDM can accept/authenticate RDP connections yet or if this is actively being worked on.

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It’s been years since gnome made accomplishing the same thing easy: you just have to type “gnome-shell --no-x11 --headless --virtual-monitor 1920x1080”, configure either the rdp or vnc access with the grdctl utility, and start gnome-remote-desktop.service. (Though it can only be done on Linux, not on FreeBSD). So, it’s kinda odd that kde only has real support for non-headless vnc (or rdp?) mode on wayland. As I said in my first post, waypipe is a great tool, and it allows you to forget about vnc/rdp annoyances, but… I can’t run it on android clients.

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Hi, can I ask how you came up with the commands you were trying here? I’m looking for the same thing, and I had heard of kwin_wayland --virtual and krfb-virtualmonitor but this is the first instance I’ve seen them used together in this way. Was this documented somewhere, suggested to you, or did you put it together yourself?

I use headless plasma-x11 on tigervnc-server every day, so I’m hoping something comes together for Wayland before X11 dies of neglect. It seems like a lot of the needed pieces are there, but it takes some devs to be interested enough in the headless use-case to pull it all together.

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I put it together myself… As I said before, I find it bizarre that headless kwin VNC/RDP is still unsupported on Wayland. If X11 is supposed to go extinct, then why does kwin lack support for something as basic as that?

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Thanks. I had a feeling it was too good to be true :frowning:

From what I have seen there is just not much mindshare in KDE-land for the headless use case. We can see this with krfb being geared exclusively towards screensharing. GNOME getting one over them in this arena has unfortunately not inspired enough competitiveness :wink:

I did see a mention in the recent announcement of the changes planned for SDDM that RDP/VNC integration was among the goals for that, but I expect it is low on the list. We’ll see.

Meanwhile I am dabbling with Wayfire + WayVNC so at least I have something by way of a Plan B. Wayfire is heavier than I’d like for my other use-case (currently Fluxbox) but labwc may fit the bill there.