xpra - A God Tool for Managing Linux Apps Remotely from Web Browser (Remote Desktop)... Or So I Thought

There’s a project called xpra that’s been around for a while, it can do various things like X11 forwarding, and to put it in one word quoting the site’s description, it’s cross-platform X11 forwarding.

I wonder if cross-platform includes Android, but Android is under development. Probably best not to expect too much.

• Clients/Android – Xpra
• How to Use xpra to Run Linux Applications in a Web browser - YouTube
• Versions – Xpra

Install the terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install terminator

Refer to the following for installation steps (Ubuntu 18.04)

Window Switch - Debian Repository

Execute.

# xpra start --bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:4001 --html=on --start-child=gedit :e
    # xpra start --bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:4001 --html=on --start-child=bash :e
        # xpra start --bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:4001 --html=on --start-child=termx
        # or
        xpra start --bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:4001 --html=on --start-child=terminator
            # xpra start-desktop --bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:4001 --html=on --start-child=terminator

Scripts I run quite frequently

kill -9 $(sudo lsof -Pi -sTCP:LISTEN | grep 4001 | awk 2)

kill -9 $(ps aux | grep xpra | awk 2)

After running xpra start —bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:4001 —html=on —start-child=terminator, access localhost:4001.

Looks pretty good.

After trying various things, it seems you can also open Atom and Chrome.

To summarize briefly,

• No sound
• Many bugs
• Need to configure with gnome-control-center but gnome-control-center won't open
• Can't use keyboard shortcuts
• Fun to play with but not practical
• Good for showing off to friends but not practical
• The completeness is somehow regrettably close
• If you're just using CLI, it's practical. But then you might as well just use SSH.

Don’t say it’s a careless summary. I worked hard for 6 hours but this is my conclusion. Really, good job me…

The version is the same as the latest stable. Pulseaudio is also installed, and I don’t know anymore. (crying)

I had expectations because the latest version was from March 2019.

I struggled with the bug Error: no video pipeline options found for BGRA at 734x452, but #757 (Getting “BUG: failed to setup video pipeline…” Server output) – Xpra was closed without being fully understood.

But it’s interesting that technology has progressed this far. Looking forward to the future.