I need a very simple method for non-advanced users to share each other’s screen explicitly when they need help. They’re running XFCE on Manjaro and the machines involved are using Tailscale. Edit: SSH access is also available, with key authentication.
I need something super simple because they are remote from me and from each other and any graphical setup will have to be assisted sight-unseen over phone. So ideally just (1) install something (which I can do for them over SSH), (2) pick something from the Applications menu and maybe (3) press a big “START” button.
It’s also ok-ish if the remote capability is present all the time and I can connect without their explicit permission, but you can see why it would be best if they did something to enable it…
I’ve been looking for a solution but all I find is stuff that’s way too complicated OR starts a new desktop session instead of showing the current one.
Edited: to clarify I’m not the one who will be remoting-in and to mention SSH is available.
TIA
Rustdesk, I use it for work
+1. I use it to help non-tech relatives. Apparently works on different OSes, including Android.
Install, setup password, create icon on desktop and name it “Help me” - Done.
Give Rustdesk a shot. Haven’t used myself, but have heard good things about it.
Rustdesk looks almost perfect, unfortunately they mandate using a complex password and the people who would be using this have trouble typing complex passwords. And complex passwords would not be necessary anyway with direct IP connection over Tailscale. Looks like they don’t intend to relax these requirements. Such a pity. 🙁
You can set permanent passwords, that you can define yourself. Something like “Password1” shouldn’t be too hard for most people.
EDIT: Also, now that I think about it, in your use case you would be the one entering the password. So your comment makes no sense…
I’m not the one that will be using either end and I’m also not on location with either machine.
Further arguments against such arbitrary requirements have already been made by others in the discussion attached to the bug report so I won’t rehash them here.
RustDesk looks extremely user friendly and simple. If this is beyond the targeted users consider that this task may be beyond their capabilities.
Yup: write down the password when you set up the software and feed it to your “own” RustDesk on your computer.
Although I recently had a case where the password on the remote machine seemed to have changed by its own, but it could be me or the machine owner who did something funny without noticing.
I have to be honest - its a foss software, so make use of the fact that its a foss.
You can make simple password and you can also save the password so no need to retype. Anydesk can also be used with no password, the other side have to press accept. Probably rustdesk can do that as well, but didnt try
That would have been very helpful but no, it doesn’t support that.
And another issue is that it doesn’t let you enter the Tailscale machine name for the remote end, it thinks it’s one of its own IDs and gets confused. You can work around this by entering the Tailscale IP address but those can change.
Not open source, but AnyDesk is another option that does exactly what you want.
There was a Flatpak, but the maintainer quit, so, you’ll probably have to install it directly from their official site.
Anyway, RustDesk, as mentioned by other comment, is essentially the open source alternative to AnyDesk, so maybe look into that first.
Does it seem like VNC would fit your use case? TigerVNC is cross platform and reliable.
DW Service! Set it up once and then the client doesn’t even need to type a password to share their screen as you can log into their computer remotely to help out. Open source as well.
x11vnc -findwill find the first X desktop session and start a server on the first available port starting at 5900. By default, it’ll accept a single connection from any address. The server stops when the client disconnects unless the-foreveroption is set.You can send the user a script with all required options already set, or start it remotely through SSH.
Removed by mod
Another option that’s pretty much perfect as long as you don’t need to provide remote support for macs is Remotely (https://github.com/immense/Remotely). You can selfhost it and it works kind of like teamviewer, so pretty simple from the client standpoint.
This seems very suspicious
Just tech support, a remote log login works be suspicious. My kids share screens all the time.
Isn’t VNC can do it?
VNC doesn’t work well with high latency (e.g. remote support). It also isn’t secure so it has to be encrypted (e.g. through wireguard or ssh port forwarding).
Using something like RustDesk is easier to set up. A nightly build even works on Wayland (with some caveats).
anydesk is pretty good. rustdesk is also pretty good but kinda laggy from my experience
nextcloud talk
I think you can screen share with discord.
Honestly it’s simple things like this that keep people from using Linux, myself included. I even run some servers on Linux and it’s always a struggle to get anything done.
Pretty sure most people on windows do remote screen sharing via teamviewer or anydesk or discord. All of which exist for Linux.
Learn to setup headless servers :-)
I don’t ever do anything else, even though I could easily use graphical remote desks too.
