xpra VS i3

FWIW I had decent success with Xpra on Linux, and it's still being actively developed, e.g. the HTML5 client is considered stable now: https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/

I use xpra for similar purposes (https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/)

> Xpra is known as "screen for X" : its seamless mode allows you to run X11 programs, usually on a remote host, direct their display to your local machine, and then to disconnect from these programs and reconnect from the same or another machine(s), without losing any state. Effectively giving you remote access to individual graphical applications. It can also be used to access existing desktop sessions and start remote desktop sessions.

I want to move to the "future", but I use several firefox profiles via xpra in combination with xdotool based hotkeys. The fluidity with which I can control my different profile windows without a mouse and with which I can switch between computers with no lag with this setup is a big reason why I have stuck with a Linux desktop, so I am sad to see those super powers go away for no perceived benefit. I have tried Wayland several times now and don't notice any performance differences, just more bugs in Wayland.

`xdotool search` seems like it has been deemed a security issue for reasons I can't understand (if someone has hacked in to the point that they can even run such query commands, surely I'm already pwn'd). Maybe I'm oversimplifying it, but to me it's like being upset that someone who broke into your house can see the color of your curtains. The powerful feature set of X far outweighs these minor security concerns.

And it looks like xpra is facing huge issues switching over https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/issues/387 :(, I have yet to be as satisfied with any other free remote desktop software (paid nomachine is close but less scriptable).

I hope these aren't fundamental limitations of wayland, but the challenges seem steep.

They all operate(d) their GPUs just fine. I'm a heavy user of VirtualGL + XPRA for remote graphics usage, which is a constant factor in my life and work. When they're not doing graphics of some sort, they're hunting pulsars in a GPU-centric compute mode.

I've long been a huge fan of Xpra https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra , both because of its "screen for X" original focus (though now it supports shadowing an existing session).

There was NoMachine / nx / freenx but it always seemed to be a weird animal to me, requiring installation as a separate unix user, at least at the time.

One of my favorite bits of software is Xpra [0], "screen for X". You'd run it and it would start another X server (start apps in it with `DISPLAY=:1 xterm` or whatever), and you would "attach" it to your running X server with `xpra attach`.

You can attach to e.g. `ssh://hostname/:1`, so I ran a firefox instance on a homelab server and attached to it from my laptop and my desktop to not have to bother keeping bookmarks, tabs etc in sync.

[0] https://xpra.org/

I’ve used Xpra in the past to connect to a remote system for GUI stuff, but I almost exclusively use ssh because most of the time I don’t need to run a remote windowing system.

To add to this if you need to access graphical applications of an entire desktop environment you can use Xpra or MOONLIGHT (I suggest the second one if you want to game on the remote desktop or need very low latency in general), you can use both of these through a ssh tunnel (you need to enable this and X forwarding in the config) so if you setup and allow access to ssh correctly you can also use these without too much of a hassle.

Linux fernando-ipmh61r3 6.1.0-1006-oem #6-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Jan 24 18:24:09 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux | NVIDIA-SMI 525.89.02 Driver Version: 525.89.02 CUDA Version: 12.0 | /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-updates main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-backports main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list:deb [arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cappelikan-ubuntu-ppa-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/cappelikan/ppa/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Types: deb /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:URIs: https://deb.librewolf.net /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Suites: jammy /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Components: main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Architectures: amd64 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/librewolf.gpg /etc/apt/sources.list.d/neon.list:deb http://archive.neon.kde.org/user/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nicotine-team-ubuntu-stable-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nicotine-team/stable/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/obsproject-ubuntu-obs-studio-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/obsproject/obs-studio/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openjdk-r-ubuntu-ppa-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openjdk-r/ppa/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/org.kde.neon.net.launchpad.ppa.mozillateam.list:deb https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/mozillateam/ppa/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Types: deb /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:URIs: https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Suites: jammy /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Components: main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Architectures: amd64 i386 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Types: deb /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:URIs: https://xpra.org /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Suites: jammy /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Components: main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/xpra.asc

While I believe Memory Saver was a great improvement, it only works if the tab is hidden or the window minimized. I recently learned the required state is not triggered if the tab is open but on another virtual desktop. At least this is the case with many of not all Linux window managers. Some of the many discussion threads on the topic:

https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/4353

> This is very true, and unfortunately there are very few people working on linux accessibility (including not me! I am part of the problem!).

Accessibility work itself ironically suffers from an accessibility problem. I brought up i3wm above, the issue for that is pretty illuminating: https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/3393

It's not that the devs are saying "this doesn't matter", the devs behind one of the most popular tiling window managers in the X11 ecosystem are saying, "this does matter, but we don't know how to fix it. We don't know what changes we'd need to make to get Orca working."

It's a really fundamental breakdown that's kind of a tragedy because I honestly believe that if accessibility communities were more heavily baked into testing and development in Linux and if this wasn't treated like two separate worlds, it would be better for everyone -- fixing accessibility concerns very often improves interfaces across the board and makes them more powerful.

But... how do you bridge that gap? I don't really know, I tried looking into Orca to see what would need to happen here and bounced off of it pretty hard, it's not a very approachable tech stack and there aren't tutorials or getting started guides. And on the other side of the issue I can preach about needing accessibility input during interface design, but I'm not in a position to give specific advice because I don't use screenreaders or alternate control schemes and I don't know what the biggest problems are.

The people who need to be involved in that process can't get involved because there's a tech barrier in place even for technically inclined people, and because the underlying software locks them out from the start. i3wm isn't ever going to get someone who's intimately familiar with Orca to jump into the conversation because the people who need to use Orca can't use i3wm. So that leaves the people who can address that tech barrier, but they don't know what to do or how to approach the problem because of the lack of involvement and because the communities are isolated from each other. So it's a chicken-and-egg problem and I don't know how to solve it.

This is partially why i use tools like i3 (/ sway). i like the tool; it works extremely well for me; the design has stayed the same for 20 years; there's no profit motive to come along and fuck everything up. it just works. it is boring in the best way possible.

I use MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid-2014) with Manjaro as OS using i3 as a window manager. It isn't perfect, but I'm thrilled with it. I have been a Mac OS user for the last 15 years and wouldn't change what I have now for a Mac OS because I don't need more than what I'm using for development.

Even though, we have moved the official i3 support channel to GitHub discussions, i3's biggest community is still on reddit and if things continue like that there is going to be a lot of helpful content on an increasingly closed platform.

for example, take i3. https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/4478

For daily usage I really like kubuntu with i3wm, but it takes some configuration and getting used to the shortcuts, but it's well worth it