I’ve run into a very tricky ThinLinc issue and would appreciate any help.
Environment Description:
Local Host: Physical machine, OS is Ubuntu 24.04, Desktop Environment is Gnome.
Remote Session: A virtual desktop session created on the same machine via ThinLinc, Desktop Environment is XFCE.
Problem Details: I am working in my local Gnome desktop environment and simultaneously connecting to an XFCE remote session on the same machine using the ThinLinc client.
The problem is, when I try to open certain applications in the remote XFCE session (like the file manager or a web browser), their windows don’t open within the remote session. Instead, they appear directly on my local Gnome desktop.
This has a critical consequence: because the window is on the local desktop while my keyboard and mouse are focused inside the remote session client, I cannot interact with these “misplaced” windows at all. From the perspective of the remote session, it seems as if the application failed to launch or simply disappeared, when in reality, it has escaped to my local desktop.
This issue prevents me from using these applications normally within the remote session and is severely impacting my work. I suspect it might be some kind of Window Manager conflict or an X11 configuration problem, but I don’t know where to start troubleshooting.
Has anyone else encountered this situation where remote application windows “escape” to the local desktop? How can this be resolved?
Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated!
The problems you are experiencing are very likely related to the same root cause as discussed in this post:
In short, the vast majority of modern desktop environments assume that only a single graphical session is running per user. Assuming you are logging into ThinLinc and the local machine using the same Linux user, this is the cause of your problems.
The easiest way to circumvent this is logging in to ThinLinc using a different user than you used to log in locally to the machine.
Thanks for your answer, now I have a question, can I automatically quit the gnome desktop on the local machine when the remote xfce desktop is activated (sometimes I forget to quit when I am finished using it locally)
@zhanghongtao ThinLinc allows you to define your own “profiles”. A ThinLinc profile is essentially what is run when the session starts after selecting XFCE in the profile chooser.
You could potentially create a new profile that launches a shell script. This shell script could then kill your current local GNOME session, and then launch XFCE.
A word of warning: killing the GNOME session will result in unsaved files and documents being lost.