Hi,
I have configured the thinlinc server on the linuxmint xfce 21.3, but the desktop show with the client is not the original one it look like this :
I don’t know how to configure the server properly to get the original desktop.
And when i logon with the same user localy on the server, i get the same desktop.
Kind Regards
Hello,
I’m not entirely sure what you mean. What desktop environment did you expect to be presented with?
Could you show us what desktop environments you have installed on the server? ThinLinc does not come with any desktop environments included, it will use what you have installed on the server.
Show us the output of
ls -al /usr/share/xsessions
Regards,
Martin
Hello thanks for your reply.
Here is the screenshot of the original desktop
Here is the output of the command :
ls -al /usr/share/xsessions/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 jan 9 14:26 .
drwxr-xr-x 322 root root 12288 avr 2 18:03 …
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 7107 mar 22 2023 xfce.desktop
From that output, it looks like you only have the XFCE Desktop Environment installed. For Cinnamon, I would expect to see
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 268 Jan 4 19:09 cinnamon2d.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 155 Jan 4 19:09 cinnamon.desktop
Could you describe how you ended up in this situation?
Yes it’s true, because i’ve installed the XFCE linuxmint distibution, so the desktop in the second post is the XFCE desktop, but not the same as the thinlinc client desktop.
So first login on the server give the original desktop like picture in the second post. After a login with the thinlinc client (windows or linux, i’ve tried both) the desktop is modified like the picture in the first post. If i come back locally to the server the desktop is modified and i don’t find a way to come back to the original desktop.
Hi,
In my lab, I get the same desktop if I log in locally on the server as when I log on with the ThinLinc client. It’s the same user account in both cases.
Are you using different users?
Kind regards,
Martin
Thanks for your reply.
I’ve tried both, same and other users. I’ve the issue all the time.
Issue comes after the server has rebooted once.
Hi,
ThinLinc won’t interfere with what settings for Themes and Appearance are set for the users. I think you’d need to reach out the Mint / XFCE forums.
Kind regards,
Martin
Ok thank you for your help.
KR
Yes it does interfere. I have the same problem: Always had the same desktop until I installed and configured thinlinc server on the Linux Mint server. Now my desktop has changed, just like fred described. It is definitely the result of installing and using thinlinc. Maybe a result of updates or configuration that followed the thinlinc install or the configuration following thinlinc login?
I just confirmed that this does happen on Linux Mint 22.1 XFCE. I’m not sure why, needs further investigation. But I doubt it has anything to do with ThinLinc per se. My best guess is that the installer pulls in some package as a dependency which breaks things.
I’ll try digging a bit deeper and see if I can confirm this.
I observe the same when remoting into a workstation with Linux Mint 22 Wilma from a laptop with Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia.
My screens look almost identical to the screenshots posted by Fred. His second screenshot (the good dektop) is what I saw when logging into the workstation directly yesterday. When I tried logging in from my laptop via Thinlinc today, it hanged at “Choosing a profile step 6/12”. I had to close the Thinlinc window. Fred’s first screenshot (the broken desktop) is what I saw when I managed to log in remotely on the second try. The broken desktop is also what I see now on every subsequent login with Thinlinc. Small detail: Thinlinc always brings up the Profile Chooser for me when I log in. When I log into my workstation again directly when I’m back at the office tomorrow, I will see the broken desktop again. And I should be able to fix it with the following command from the Linux Mint forum:
xfce4-panel --quit ; pkill xfconfd ; rm -rf ~/.config/xfce4/panel ; rm -rf ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml ; xfce4-panel
Then I should have my good desktop back. This oneliner doesn’t help now that I’m logged in remotely with Thinlinc. Also, when I log in remotely with Thinlinc again, it will probably break my desktop. It does that most of the time. Sometimes I used to get the good desktop when logging in via Thinlinc but the last time is several months ago and I don’t remember what I did differently.
We can conclude it’s logging in via Thinlinc that breaks the desktop. I’d like to emphasize that both the “broken desktop” and the “good desktop” seen in the screenshots are different looks of the XFCE Desktop Environment, as Fred has pointed out.
I observe the exact same behavior on a brand new user account I created on the workstation with the Users and Groups dialog while logged in via Thinlinc.
Has anyone managed to solve this issue?
@lschreiber thanks for the extra info! I haven’t had a chance to look at this yet but hopefully this week, let me get back to you.
That’s great! Would you like to see any specific logs to help you pinpoint the cause?
If you find anything relevant in the system and/or ThinLinc logs, feel free to send it through. At the moment though I’m not entirely sure where to start looking until I get a chance to test it myself.
Okay so I’ve done some testing, and unfortunately I’m none the wiser. The issue happens as described, but if I “reset” the panel by deleting the config as per above, then the problem goes away and doesn’t come back. I’m not sure what causes the issue in the first place.
Although ThinLinc seems to provoke this issue:
Therefore, I have to conclude that this is a bug in Linux Mint XFCE, rather than an issue with ThinLinc. So there’s not much we can do about this unfortunately, however if we do find out anything more I will update this thread with info.
I can confirm that XFCE on RHEL 8.8 works fine from a ThinLinc stand point. The only issue we have is an XFCE related memory leak that will crash the RHEL box in about two months of active (daily) usage. The immediate work-around we found is to init 6 once a month to reclaim the resources. Unbeknownst to us at installation, XFCE is not supported by Red Hat. Thus, desktop and crash analysis solutions are limited; excellent support otherwise.