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I want to access my headless server from my Windows 10 laptop using my default Cinnamon desktop on Server 20.4 LTS. Cinnamon runs fine from the console. XRDP is running fine from the laptop to the server. The problem is that when I enable the remote session I get the XFCE desktop, rather than Cinnamon.

I have tried several online config guides that had me editing all sorts of configuration files, but nothing worked. XRDP is starting the XFCE desktop from somewhere. I also tried tightVNC.

1 Answer 1

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I solved this as follows:

  1. Remove and purge all xfce packages (this got me a blank remote desktop BTW).

  2. To ensure originally installed files, remove, purge, and reinstall xrdp (may not be necessary though).

  3. Do this: http://catch22cats.blogspot.com/2018/05/xrdp-blank-screen-with-ubuntu-1804.html

  4. This is the bottom of my /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh file:

     unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
     unset XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
     . $HOME/.profile
    
     test -x /etc/X11/Xsession && exec /etc/X11/Xsession
     exec /bin/sh /etc/X11/Xsession
     #cinnamon-session
    

Many of the guides will tell you to add the command to start the remote session to the end of /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh. This is uneccessary in my case (note that "cinnamon=session" is commented out), perhaps because I am running Cinnamon on the local desktop too. If you use different local and remote desktops, you may need to specify the local desktop here.

Note what did not work in Server 20.4 LTS, contrary to much of the online tutorials will tell you:

  1. You do not need to create, edit, or make executable ~/.Xclients or ~/.xsession. They are not used now.
  2. You do not need to comment out or delete the "test" and "exec" line of /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh (see above).

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