James Kiarie
This is James, a certified Linux administrator and a tech enthusiast who loves keeping in touch with emerging trends in the tech world. When I'm not running commands on the terminal, I'm taking listening to some cool music. taking a casual stroll or watching a nice movie.

Each tutorial at TecMint is created by a team of experienced Linux system administrators so that it meets our high-quality standards.

Join the TecMint Weekly Newsletter (More Than 156,129 Linux Enthusiasts Have Subscribed)
Was this article helpful? Please add a comment or buy me a coffee to show your appreciation.

22 thoughts on “How to Install Xrdp on Ubuntu 20.04”

  1. I have been to tons of other articles and most of them do not have the step about fixing the black screen which was the issue I was having.

    Congrats on having the best guide in my opinion.

    Reply
  2. Hi, just some addition to my previous comments, now I’ve tried to install xrdp according to those instructions on a fresh Jetson Nano with the latest image from Nvidia, running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

    and nothing worked, opposed to the successful trial with Xubuntu 20.04 LTS described in my previous comment. Windows RDP just opens for ~1 sec, the Nvidia logo appears, and then it closes immediately.

    so after some digging, I came across another post handling this issue, and this time with success:

    https://gist.github.com/hehuan2112/54cca01be23973a9f8b369e8d0df216e

    it is very simple, the Xfce package has to be installed and configured too in order for xrdp to be able to run properly!!!

    so the following 3 commands will do it:

    $ sudo apt install xfce4
    $ sudo apt-get install xfce4-terminal tango-icon-theme
    $ echo xfce4-session > ~/.xsession
    

    Dear James, please add this to your description! This is the main reason for the failure of the other guys complaining it doesn’t work. xrdp needs xfce to establish a session. For whatever reason xfce has been there on your test machine, so this issue didn’t appear to you, and of course, it was also present on Xubuntu 20.04 LTS, because it’s based on xfce, but not on a Jetson Nano running native Ubuntu 18.04LTS!

    Reply
  3. Just installed xrdp according to your post on a Jetson Nano running Xubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa, and it worked like a dream! Only skipped the first step “sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop“, no need on Xubuntu.

    https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/xubuntu-20-04-focal-fossa-l4t-r32-3-1-custom-image-for-the-jetson-nano/121768

    the only thing that got me was the xrdp user, tried first to log in from Windows 10 RDP client with my default Xubuntu user from installation, which did NOT work, so had to create a separate user for this.

    and without your workaround, it worked while a monitor was still connected to the Jetson Nano, of course in a new session. Booting up without a monitor and without the workaround ended in a black screen, but after applying the suggested changes to /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh this also worked immediately. For those who dislike vim (like me…), nano is the easier to use alternative for editing this file…

    and maybe also worth mentioning, disconnecting RDP and reconnecting again with the same user and password ends up in the very same session, everything that was there before is still there!

    Thanks a lot for the great work!

    Reply
  4. Hi,

    The xrp tutorial works as expected and thank you very much for the detailed guide.

    However, the xrdp seems to start a new desktop session and does not mirror the current window that’s being displayed on my device. For example, if I have firefox open on my device and I use xrdp to remote into my device with the same user credentials that are currently logged into the PC, should it not mirror the same screen and have firefox open on the xrdp session? Like how RDP works on Windows.

    I have only started learning Linux recently so I’m still new to how things work.

    Reply
  5. Hi, your workaround got me up and running. However, I cannot work on this basis, due to an extremely slow response. The screen takes up to 30 secs to update. Does anybody have a clue how to solve that?

    Reply
  6. Just set up a VM with Ubuntu 20.04.2 Server to test this process and I have to say it worked perfectly. I did not have any black screen issues that needed fixing and was able to mstsc indirectly from my laptop without a problem.

    Maybe an addition to this guide would be how to install different desktop environments?

    Also is it possible for the console to continue to boot in text mode but with xrdp functioning be able to just RDP to a desktop when required?

    Thanks for this cool and simple guide.

    Reply
    • As a side tip, I had to run ‘sudo apt-get install ubuntu-software‘ to then allow me to use the GUI Software tool to add additional applications on the desktop.

      Reply
  7. Guys, the workaround for the black screen is absolutely awesome.
    It can only come from someone who knows this stuff.

    Thanks a lot!

    Reply

Got something to say? Join the discussion.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. We appreciate your decision to leave a comment and value your contribution to the discussion. It's important to note that we moderate all comments in accordance with our comment policy to ensure a respectful and constructive conversation.

Rest assured that your email address will remain private and will not be published or shared with anyone. We prioritize the privacy and security of our users.