I’ve been using Linux (Kubuntu to be precise) as my standard operating system on my laptop for a couple of months now. I used Linux almost exclusively in my ten university years (from 1999 to 2009), but in the corporate world it was all Windows. And while I’m not a massive Windows hater, Windows 11 just doesn’t feel very responsive. Why do I have to hit F5 in the File Explorer after having created a new folder to actually get to see it? Linux feels much snappier in that regard, and since my software development is now mostly in Rust and Python, I can do most of my work under Linux.
But I do have two desktop PCs (one Windows, one dual-boot) that I use for data processing and that I need to access from my laptop. I’ve tried all sorts of remote desktop connection programs – Teamviewer, Parsec, RustDesk – but the one that simply works for me in my local network is Microsoft’s Remote Desktop protocol (RDP). I use KRDC as client under Kubuntu. This works fine, but it has one drawback – it can use only one of the local screens. That’s fine most of the time, but there are cases where I want the remote desktop on both of the screens that I have in front of me.
The solution to this is to use xfreerdp3 as client. Under Ubuntu, it is installed with
sudo apt install freerdp3-x11
There’s no GUI, sessions are launched from the command line. The /multimon parameter is required to use all local monitors:
xfreerdp3 /multimon /u:toby /v:192.168.10.100
This will then ask for the domain name (just hit Enter) and password. You can also directly specify the password with /p.
As the session takes up all screens, you need a few shortcuts: Ctrl+Alt+Enter toggles fullscreen, Ctrl+Alt+m minimizes the window, Ctrl+Alt+d disconnects.
