Error: No executable profiles could be found

One common support issue we get is about the error message “No executable profiles could be found” that appears when trying to login to a ThinLinc session.

The most common cause of this is that a session cant start because no working desktop environment is installed on the system. Many Linux distributions are available as “minimal” installs, this could mean that a desktop isn’t included.

To check which desktop environments you have installed, you can run this command:

  ls /usr/share/xsessions

Examples of desktop environments are GNOME, XFCE, Mate, KDE and Cinnamon.

Note that if you run a ThinLinc cluster, only the Agents need to have working desktop environments.

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Most Linux distributions will have a way of installing entire desktop environments with a single command. For example, to install the MATE desktop on CentOS (must have EPEL repositories enabled):

$ sudo yum groupinstall "MATE Desktop"

On Fedora (you may also want to install the mate-applications group):

$ sudo dnf groupinstall mate-desktop

On Ubuntu 20.04:

$ sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop

ThinLinc includes profiles for most popular desktops. However, if no ThinLinc profile is available yet for your desktop - fortunately, you can add your own. This is done either directly in the configuration file (default location is /opt/thinlinc/etc/conf.d/profiles.hconf) or by using the Web Admin Interface.

Aside from learning from the existing profiles you can find information regarding each configuration parameter for a new profile here:

https://www.cendio.com/resources/docs/tag-devel/html/configuration_customizing_user_session.html#configuration_config-profiles

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