I tried, I really did

I read the first paragraph and saw your prerequisites included working with nvidia.

That is a non-starter, right there. You can blame Linux for a whole lot of little flaws, but most of the blame should go to your hardware vendor for providing shitty support for Linux.

I swear, every time one of these posts/comments pops up, the chances root issues are caused by Nvidia hardware is insanely high.

Windows admin here. It was immediately clear to me how this would end:

1. someone proficient in windows goes back to being a dumb newbie is gonna be frustrating as heck.

2. being a power user/IT professional most likely means non standard setup

3. there are very few windows native admins in the linux sphere to test things from a non dev/non user perspective

4. the companies making „professional“ linux are still not comparable to M$

5. „professional linux“ would probably be RHEL for you.

6. you can try and run a windows vm in your linux to try if stuff works then.

7. your mindset needs to change: you‘re now a guy responsible for implementing rdp correctly, embrace open source and make it work for everyone. See the amount of influence you can actually have.

8. if you can, consider using windows and linux side by side as long as needed, until stuff works. Find the reasons people abandon windows (i.e. you finally have control).

Just a stream of ideas. Hmu if you have any questions.

but if someone with 20 years of IT experience gets this feed up with it, imagine how your average user would feel.

Do you think "your average user" would run into something like this? How many people are running 4 monitors?

if someone with 20 years of IT experience gets this feed up with it, imagine how your average user would feel.

The average user just wants to open up a browser to use tiktok, instagram, gmail, and whatever else it is people use these days. Maybe edit a few documents and look at local pictures? The average user isn't going to use RDP or train an LLM.

As others have said: NVIDIA sucks for linux. They have sucked for linux for more than a decade (snippet). And RDP: try Remmina.

Also dualbooting is so-so. Windows likes to mess up the bootloader for no reason during updates. If you switch, it's best to go full linux or try first from a VM.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

IT for 20 years

Can't use a live CD

Uh huh

Multiple mistakes:

1. You went with a very old distro, Ubuntu 22.04 is almost 2 years old. You could pick a non-lts ubuntu instead. Thankfully you ended up picking Fedora.

2. A single google search could've given you better alternatives to FreeRDP like Remmina. You can always ask people stuff like this on Lemmy or elsewhere ("what's the best rdp client on linux?") rather than waiting till you run out of patience.

3. You shouldn't need to compile software by yourself, you can use flatpak to install newer versions of software and flathub even has a beta repo you can add for even newer software.

It's not against you, we all learn from mistakes. Just try to be more social about your linux journey if you don't want to struggle

Tldr: you made the classic mistake of going head first into this without a friend to help you or at least documenting yourself properly on the current state of Linux desktops through various medias like Youtube. It doesn't help that you suffered from the ol' "I'm a windows expert so this should be similar/easy and if it fails it's not my fault"

At this point, I’m just so sick of every little thing being a huge struggle

Suffering is inevitable. This is the first noble truth in Buddhism. Troubleshooting Linux is Tao.

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"something as simple as RDP" haha hahaha you're a funny one!

My recent experience with helping a friend with an nvidia card to work on Linux is that I never want to touch an nvidia card again.

Also, please tell me which average user makes its own windows installation. When I was young in the 90s I was paid to install windows in my village.

But yes, much progress is still needed to smooth the installation. The problem is that the hardware is often a fault though, through their shitty drivers.

I would think that some of these problems with RDP and monitors might be caused by running Wayland with an Nvidia GPU. I'm pretty sure both Ubuntu and Fedora use Wayland out of the box by default. Best off using Xorg until Nvidia sorts their shit.

Dont fall for bait guys

Weird, sucks you had a rough time. I'm mostly perplexed about the network card issue, and the monitors. I haven't had any trouble like that in more than a decade. I've honestly actually had more trouble with a new install of windows failing to detect hardware than Linux recently.

You definitely are not a typical user, and you have specific requirements that heavily bias towards Windows.

Just do what works best for you. Yes, you'll have to put up with Windows BS, but your problems with daily driving Linux are worse.

For rdp take a look at remmina

For RDP, i use Remmina, no idea if it will do what you want for your weird monitor layout, but it is a well featured RDP client.

I would say that your experience is unusual, even with nvidia. Ive always used nvidia, and its generally been a significantly smoother experience.

Not that you did anything wrong in this process but I think you stacked the deck against yourself by requiring an open-source OS work so seamlessly with a proprietary one.

You tried. That is far more than many people. Good for you!

I have had similar experiences, but from Linux to other OSes. The mental models for using them are really different, and those don't get enough discussion.

Same as you, in IT forever, ...I switched, and I'm never going back. It's fast, and it's brought the joy back for me. Nvidia needs to do better, but that was the only difficulty I had.

For me, the built up revulsion I feel towards windows and the sheer determination I feel to never use it again, means I would rearrange my monitors, or, you know, try more than two distros.

Linux isn’t for everyone, I acknowledge that fact. It requires a user that wants to troubleshoot, wants to figure out why something doesn’t work and make it work. If the headache isn’t fun, you’re not the right kind of masochistic self flagellator that Linux attracts, and that’s okay.

If you ever do decide to give it another whirl, try Linux Mint, MX Linux, or my personal flavor of choice, EndeavourOS. And put your monitors in a boring straight line like the rest of us before you coming crawling back.

This reply is meant to be partially humorous but entirely honest.

Don't give up too easily friend. I've been slowly moving some of my hone systems away from Window's, and much like you, I've spent close to 20 years as a Windows admin. I have the advantage of using Linux on my always ancient laptops over the years and it is my personal opinion that Debian is the way to go.

Give LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) a go, it is very familiar to navigate coming from Windows and isn't going to have constant updates breaking stuff (looking at you Arch).

First thing after installing run apt-get update, then add the Nvidia drivers (add the source to your sources and install, if you need help, post back and we've got you!) and reboot.

but who would have thought something that sounds as simple as wanting to RDP across 4 monitors would be so damn difficult.

The ubuntu unstability surprised me (not that I would recommend it anyways), but this didn't. Isn't RDP a proprietary protocol of Microsoft? Probably not too many use it in the Linux world

Thank you for sharing your story!

For your kind of use case and issues, I'd recommend finding someone local with a good amount of Linux experience and do a couple of pair sessions. I find this transports a lot more (especially 'soft') knowledge on concepts and how to do things efficiently. Also, it helps to share frustrations ;-)

Linux does not try to be another Windows. While it's fairly possible to treat it kinda as such especially in newer times, it won't feel efficient or convenient that way, in my experience.

For RDP, I use Remmina. Multimon only works on X though, not wayland, so make sure that's the graphic server you're running. Idk if it'll work for 2x2 tho, I only have 2 monitors.

For the headaches, I use a magic pill that I'm not legally allowed to view the ingredients of and cry into my Tissues as a Service.

Hey buddy, no stress, I feel ya! Switching OSes is like trying a new flavor of ice cream – it can be an adventure at times. But, let me share some wisdom from my Linux journey. When we focus on the small stuff, we unintentionally give power to the big guys. Linux is all about flexibility and community support. Sure, it might not be perfect right away, but that's part of the fun! Keep pushing through, you'll soon see why so many of us love this open-source world. Let's rock this Linux life together

That sucks. I've found that 90% of stuff works fine in Linux, 5% works if you jury rig it enough, and 5% just straight up doesn't work - and if that last 5% is needed for your job, then you're SOL. For me the few things that don't work are worth giving up because of how much I hate Windows' spyware and adware, and all my work apps work fine in a browser window so I've never had to worry about that.

There's an app on Flatpacks called Thincast remote desktop client. I don't htink it's using the free rdp libraries, so it's possible that the bugs you encountered with the other open source apps (that all use the same underlying libs), might not be there.

Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you :(

To squeeze in a metaphor : Linux is just a hobby project that kind of got out of hand in a previously Microsoft dominated world.

In the BSD world (FreeBSD,NetBSD,OpenBSD etc.) things are actually much worse. I've read that on computer conferences BSD developers come with an Apple Macbook (Running MacOS) to show BSD software development, which is running on servers. And I like BSD, but on the desktop it is still lacking. One only has to look at the amount of packages which no longer have a maintainer. I am not complaining about it, as I realize that maintaining open source software can be a burden.

If you want to play some more with Linux on the desktop, you can use WSL on Microsoft Windows, or use VirtualBox. Wanting to make Linux your daily driver may require more patience, or throwing money at it to speed up code development.

damn, that sucks. I've installed Linux on 10 personal computers so far, from phones to servers, and I actually haven't had too many issues. Then again, I've never needed RDP and the only computers with NVIDIA graphics are the servers, which are headless.

I read "boot", "side by side with windows, "ubuntu", Nvidia" and some awfull war flashbacks came back to haunt me.

As someone who grew up toying with both windows, Mac and Linux I think people always underestimate how hard it'll be to migrate to an OS they never tried before. I've seen lots of people getting frustrated that way, regardless of the OS.

So I'd say being an IT guy or a tech illiterate won't change much in that regard. I guess being an IT might at least give you shortcuts but you'll still hit a wall if you don't check beforehand if all your needs will be easy to access and how much pain you'll have to deal with.

At least that's my take on it.

But yeah, Ubuntu can be awfull depending on your needs. Windows and Linux don't make good neighbors, windows is always the one trying to murder the other, and Nvidia is a nasty piece of work.

Sorry to hear about that mess.

I posted here https://lemmy.nz/comment/1784981 a while back about what I went through with the Nvidia driver on Linux.

From what I can tell, people who think Linux works fine on Nvidia probably only have one monitor or maybe two that happen to be the same model ( with unique EDID serials FWIW ). My experience with a whole bunch of mixed monitors / refresh rates was absolutely awful.

If you happen to give it another go, get yourself an AMD card, perhaps you can carry on using the Nvidia card for the language modelling, just don't plug your monitors into it.

Remmina

Its sad but linux is still a second class citizen. Nvidea drivers have improved greatly over the years, but it can be still flaky especially newer ones.

Multi moniter support too, it has a history troubled with challenges. Its much much better than it used to be but sometimes there are setups and usecases which have problems. It used to be multiple monitors, just having them as a desktop, was impossible. Nowaday I can daily drive Linux and expect to have a good desktop experience across multiple monitors.

Mindyou, every windows update its a dieroll what breaks for my work surface labtop. Often my display or dock behaviour breaks or my bluetooth, or my networking. Not to excuse the bugs in linux, but to show that even MS on their own hardware have bugs like that. Pcs are hard and even MS can't do it flawlessly.

What you describe as simple multimonitor RDP might actually be a very complex task from a technology and display standpoint.

That being said, it totally sucks having a usecase and finding out that for you have problems getting there. I agree that Linux still has major hurdles for general adoption, (although again, it is so much better than it used to be). Look at it this way: if desktop linux had the same amount of money and development time thrown at it as Windows or MacOS, we'd have a very different experience.

As for tips. I recommend to dualboot. Use MS for your usecases that are not a good experience and use Linux for the other things. Keep checking in with the multiple RDP tech/workflow to see if it works. I did the same thing for years. The only reason I used windows was my games. For other things I used Linux and learned my way around the desktop while doing that. Eventually Proton came along and I could switch entirely.

I mostly use SSH to manage servers, but you could try cockpit if you want something more graphical.

The accustomed workflows sometimes don't translate well to other platforms. RDP might be such a case, I don't think it's the standard in the Linux-world, maybe try the standard solution of your distribution, or look up which one is good for multi-monitor setups, there are lots of other VNC solutions. Yeah, and I'd skip Ubuntu as a first choice, but you figured that out the hard way.

Every 5 years or so Windows annoys me so much with its nonsense that I salt the earth and install a Linux distro.

The last time I did this was Ubuntu (tried manjaro or whatever its called before too) and every time I find a problem that requires hours of trawling the Internet just to find I need to basically rebuild/test/maintain my own version of the library/component.

It gets to the point where I can't really be productive and I begrudgingly go back to windows as it's less faff and more productive for me. Then the timer starts again for I get too annoyed with windows.

I want to love Linux, but its not as simple as "just using it." (unless you are using a steam deck, that is brilliant for its use case).

Part of the problem for me I feel is that the Linux eco system is so wide and vast that we don't have a singular collective agreement on where to share effort to get something as stable and easy to use as Windows etc. From this thread alone people seem to hate Ubuntu, and sur maybe it's bad, but most non Linux people only know of that Linux distro.

The sheer vastness of the eco system is it's downfall, if there was 1 main shell everyone got behind and was used by companies and end users then we would have a huge knowledge base of problems and fixes as well as a concerted effort in a shared direction. As it stands at the moment most companies using Linux don't have a shell layer, then end users are probably all using various different shells and related components etc, so effort and support is not consolidated as everyone is pulling in their own directions.

I get this is one of the things that draws in the current Linux userbase, but for those of us who just want to do same stuff we do on windows/mac we don't really care about being able to mix and match stuff, we just want to get behind something that gets out of our way and let's us use the computer, not faff in the infrastructure of the OS.

I've been extremely happy with Linuxmint the past 2-3 yrs. However I have a higher end AMD card. 97% of games play great under Proton with steam. I use Rustdesk to remote into other Linux machines as well as windows OS servers/desktops even with multiple screens and it works without issue. Just my $0.02 and I know it's heavily Ubuntu based but the stability and usability as a daily driver, also working as an IT professional has been great.

Last piece, it's been a rare occurrence but if I'm messing around using bleeding edge graphics drivers or "playing with fire" messing with deeper system configs, drivers, etc and shit the bed I have had 100% success using TIMESHIFT to completely restore my OS back to its previous state with zero data/config loss or issues. You just need to have the discipline to remember to take a backup before you know you're going to be potentially blowing something out. But, that said, it fully restores everything. I have a 18TB external USB I just use for that and it doesn't even take long either, restoring a 2 & 4TB SSD system that's pretty loaded up with data.

There are two different RDP implementations in Linux: freerdp (which is the underlying library for remmina as well) and rdesktop. Each has its own set of bugs. No idea if rdesktop offers better support for what you want to do—I use it, but I only have single-monitor setups at both ends. (It has an annoying bug that can make it require multiple attempts to establish a connection, though.)

VMs in which Windows hosts fors RDP run are my solution.

However I try to not having to use Microsoft systems which makes a lot of problem go away.

For a majority of tasks Linux daily drivers are fine, however at work we have plenty of computers with varying operating systems, some even from before 2000.

Bummer that it's giving you such a hard time. On rdp: Linux/Linux doesn't even need it. ssh to remote. Run gui app. It runs on remote and displays locally. Wayland is probably going to kill that though. Until it does, the X11 client / server model is pretty swank.

Like with any unfamiliar tech I find it is probably smoother to start small and work your way up.

So find a laptop that people have no issues running Linux on. Get one and then install just Linux on that and play with it.

The thing is, Linux has a small user base and so it probably isn't realistic to expect it to support every conceivable hardware configuration on top of dual booting on every one with Windows. It's way better than it used to be but sometimes people run into problems. Like me trying to get 5.19 kernel to work properly with my specific newer AMD GPU (any 6.x kernel is fine so like Fedora? No prob).

One of the things I try to do is research what network card chipsets, sound chipsets, and video card models work easily because some just don't.

It sucks I know. Linux doesn't have a gazillion dollar market behind it providing significant incentive for vendors to get their shit straight. Even so Linux does pretty well.

Anyway. When you're fighting with several things at once it is easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated. Dual boot with windows, alone, can be iffy in my recent experience. Then add Nvidia, more headache. Then add some less common use cases like rdp... Etc.

Best of luck if you try again.

I'm on the ubuntu derivative Pop!_OS. I RDP with multiple monitors of different resolutions using remina. Nvidia is also supported out of the box. All you'd need to do is install pop and then remmina.

Is your problem that you just want one big window across all your monitors? I.e. not multi monitor RDP, or that you want a separate window on each monitor where each is seen as another monitor on the remote system?

Skill issue

Bummer! Sounds like a pain in the ass.

I wish I had a suggestion for you, but I only use two monitors and all of my work is ssh, no RDP needed.

I am a long time Linux user but even I am struggling recently as I have finally started working towards migrating my last windows machine ( strictly for gaming ) over to Linux with a windows partition for the one off chance I need to play on windows still. Currently only 1.5 of my monitors work ( my left monitor top half is black. ) It is fine in post, bios and windows but not in my fedora distro. Also, my performance tanked even though I can see my GPU is working as intended. My high refresh monitor is also not playing nice and ghosting all over the place, unlike in windows where there is only standard tearing when there is a frame rate mismatch.

Fortunately for me, I like tinkering and solving these issues, but I can imagine for someone wanting to avoid messing with their equipment it is probably more of a headache than a challenge. But I have personally always been of the mindset of using the tool that works best for you, with the exception of any moral considerations you may have. (I am just not a fan of windows or apple as a company.)

Good luck with your issue and I hope you find a resolution, but if not, I would just use what works.

Sad storry dude. I am running POPOS with gtx1060 as my daily driver for a year now. I used to have 3 monitors, but have 2 atm. Im using rustdesk (tried more apps and still looking for the best one) to connect to my office PC (windows, single monitor) and the other way around. Everything works great, but I need few apps that are windows only (main reason I use remote desktop). Other than that, cant play few games on linux, but i dont care about games that much. I was sure Ill have to go back to windows, but never happened

Sound like fun 🙃 frustrating fun, but hopefully you get something that works when you come back to it. Unusual setups always pay the price.

I would suggest trying a remote desktop solution other than rdp... Although I can see how that may not work since it would involve installing software on your work machine.

Long story short, I can’t use multiple monitor RDP because I have different resolution monitors and they are stacked 2x2 instead of all in a row.

Did you try setting them up as one big display across all four, instead of four little ones? I think that's something you can do.

Does the multi-mon RDP thing work from a Windows client too? I'd be surprised if it did, Windows' multi-monitor support is fairly lacking in my experience too.

There is a "tested" dev snapshot of freerdp on the flathub beta repository, its pretty good even supports kerberos/protected accounts. I've also used the thincast gui app from the freerdp developers (also on flathub), which is also built on the dev branch and the gui exposes multimonitor options (but its not something I usually use).

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I get it, but could your use case e any more niche?

I really hope Linus sees this

This sounds like a lot of my experiences with Linux. Before I went back to Ubuntu which mainly solved the specific issues I had. Not saying it will solve someone elses.

And this here is exactly why i usually reply with some snark whenever someone claims I should use linux. Im not an IT guy, im a 3D artist with very limited knowledge of operating systems and computers, i did try to get linux only to find out that most of the programs I need to work with are broken in some way on linux, and updating them is a pain in the ass on a good day. Rendering also works in a very strange way, for some reason renderman requires using a terminal to work? Meanwhile on windows i can just launch my stuff and it works and rendering is as simple as clicking a button. I know window sucks, but at least its predictable and does what i need it to do.

News Flash!

"Linux is still a pain in the ass, even for experienced IT professionals." More at 11...

I've run Linux for a great many things over the years. Running 2 AWS LightSail instances for my own use. Running dozens of Ubuntu Server instances at work. Shit just works.

But Linux is a hard fail for a daily driver. Maybe not for you, but for most of us it sucks.

I've tried and tried and tried, for 20+ years. Of course I can make it work, but it's a pain in the ass. I got work to do on my daily driver, and fucking around as well. I need a desktop that just works. With everything.

Why Ubuntu?

Its literally the worst Linux

It faschinates me a lot how a company like Nvidia can't make working drivers even for xorg despite all the hype Nvidia moving their drivers into firmware. Amd sells gpu's very low numbers and they never have these issues because they can afford to release their drivers for Linux.

Linux foundation should ban Nvidia. So many headaches and wasted resources cured immediadly.

Sounds like your workflow is very much not operating system portable. If you are interested in Linux get a laptop and install linux mint.

i've been using a stick for 20 years of combat. i've seen people use f16 fighters and flew on a plane once. now i am bummed out i can't operate an f16.

Jfc all this sub is is people bitching and moaning about windows. Do you all really have NOTHING else to talk about?

An entire sub dedicated to Linux and all you can do is talk about windows.

I need to be able to use my Nvidia 3080 ti for local LLM

Well there's your problem. You've been blindly loyal to a brand that has shown no loyalty towards consumers.

Well Linux desktop mostly sucks and however says the opposite is full of shit.

Debian might give you a better experience, less bullshit, less bugs...

Weak

Just use Arch.