Unix and Linux → Replace VNC with SSH or other remote desktop solution

It's been a while since I've posted, but I need to troubleshoot a machine I've set up to access remotely, but on the same LAN.

I'm currently running Linux Mint 19.3 on the machine and it manages a few download clients, Plex, and will eventually be doing NAS backups to the cloud and run PiHole for my network, maybe a local Minecraft server for my kids and probably some other tasks I can think of for fun and education. I'm getting two issues, VNC performance is absolutely horrible, and the machine eventually becomes unresponsive if left idle for too long.

So to break it down, would running a GUI over SSH be better than using VNC, and also, how do I get the freezing to stop? I can vouch for the machine as it's my old Desktop with pretty beefy specs, so not I'm worried about hardware issues, but I am worried that there's an easy fix I'm overlooking.

VNC and X over ssh are fundamentally different. X over ssh will not show you a desktop. The display for the remote application will show in your current desktop.

The freezing is definitely a concern, and I don't see how a remote desktop would help you troubleshoot it. You'll have to get on the console one way or another, and provide more information. Is the console frozen too? Anything change on the display around the time of the freeze?

Taking a wild stab at it, I'm going to guess it's power management. Turn it all off in the BIOS and see if the problem goes away. If the freeze goes away, you can turn the PM features back one at a time so as not to kill your power bill.

I just noticed that, so that eliminates that as a possible solution.I'll try poking around the bios and see if it helps, I had the same issue with an older PC running Xubuntu, the issue did not manifest with other OSes, or in this machine when I was using it as my daily driver.

You can use XDMCP for a remote desktop. It has been awhile, but I know GDM had settings to connect to remote X servers to display the desktop on your local X client.
This link has info to set up.
»wiki.archlinux.org/index ··· hp/XDMCP

Appreciate the suggestion, I'll take a look once I get the freezing under control.

I wonder if NoMachine is still free.

I'll take a look

I use x11vnc over a vpn connection to manage a system over 1000 miles away. The connection could be over SSH instead of VPN if needed. It works well even with the latency of the connection.

I support customers that way using VPNs from my employer's systems. Once the secure VPN connected, enabling ssh login, the x11vnc is your friend.

If a userid has already logged onto the remote system desktop from that server's console, then:

ssh -t -l $REMOTEUSER -L 5900:localhost:5900 -p 22 $REMOTEIP "x11vnc -shared -localhost -xkb  -nolookup -nodpms -nopw -display :0"
 

If nobody is (yet) logged onto the server's desktop then you have to get root involved. Enter the non-root user's password at the first prompt, and root's password at the second prompt.

ssh -t -l $REMOTEUSER -L 5900:localhost:5900 -p 22 $REMOTEIP "su -c 'x11vnc -auth guess -shared -localhost -xkb -nolookup -nodpms -nopw -display :0'"
 

After that, then in a second shell window where you did the above,

vncviewer -PreferredEncoding "ZRLE"  -Compresslevel 6 -AcceptClipboard -SendClipboard -Shared localhost:0
 

Works for me.

I haven't tried this yet, but I did some digging and it appears to be free for non-commercial use.

On a whim, I removed Vino and tried x11vnc and at least the performance issue is sorted out, irrespective of the resolution the visual quality is much better. The reading I do, the more I think I might need to opt for solution that creates its own virtual display like TightVNC/RealVNC, but so far so good, good rendering, and no more freezing so far.

I poked around the BiOS but couldn't find any power settings that would've affect it.