VNC vs RDP (was Re: vnc)

[Preston Hagar]

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:20 PM, A. Jorge Garcia <calcpage at aol.com> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:10 PM, A. Jorge Garcia <calcpage at aol.com>
> wrote:
>>> Is vnc in Ubuntu equivalent to rdp in windows?  I was told I could
>>> control my desktop via an iPad with either protocol.
>>>
>
>> I changed the subject since that question should be in a new thread.
>> Anyway, VNC and RDP have the same general goals, to show a desktop of
>> one machine on another across a network.  That said, I know there are
>> RDP clients in Linux and I think there are RDP servers for Linux and I
>> know there are VNC servers and clients for Windows, so they aren't
>> specifically tied to one OS.  I like tightVNC for windows, and
>> grdesktop as a nice, graphical RDP client for Linux.
>
> Thanx, Preston, I was talking to someone who uses an RDP app on his
> iPad to control his Windows desktop.  You say that Ubuntu supports RDP
> too, so I would be able to use one app on my iPad to control my desktop
> whether I'm using Windows or Ubuntu?
>
> TIA,
> HTH,
> A. Jorge Garcia
> http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com
> http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009
>
> Teacher & Professor
> Applied Mathematics, Physics & Computer Science
> Baldwin Senior High School & Nassau Community College

First let me say, I know very little about iPads and haven't even ever
held one before.  That said, if you are using your iPad as the client,
you might want to either use RDP to connect to the Windows machine and
VNC to connect to the Linux machine, or VNC to connect to both.  In
some really quick Googling I found that there is a Linux RDP (also
called terminal services) server for linux called xrdp:

http://xrdp.sourceforge.net/

It doesn't look like it has been updated since 2008 though, and I have
never used it so I don't know how stable or reliable it is.

VNC, on the other hand, it pretty stable/reliable and is relitivly
easy to install (on Windows and on Linux.  For Windows, Google
TightVNC and download the server package, for Ubuntu it should be

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

or it is probably in Synaptic or whatever GUI program you might use to
install apps.  You should be able to find VNC server setup tutorials
pretty easy.  That said, the main downside to VNC is that there is no
built in encryption, so your desktop can be intercepted.  (there is no
built in encryption in RDP either).  Also, VNC is usually noticeably
slower than RDP, that is why I would recommend considering using RDP
for Windows machines and then possibly VNC for Linux machines.

Hopefully this will get you on the right track.  Let me know if you
have more questions

Preston