Wade's Blog

Updated February 6, 2016!

To use Microsoft’s Remote Desktop to connect to a Lubuntu 14.04 machine, use xrdp. xrdp uses vnc4server to spin up LXDE sessions on your Lubuntu machine.

To begin, install xrdp:

sudo apt-get install xrdp

If you try connecting to your machine, you’re going to get a grey desktop. xrdp is trying to use the command “startx” to start a window manager. On Lubuntu, this will not work. You need xrdp to use the command “lxsession”.

To make this change, you need to edit /home/[your_username]/.xsession:

nano /home/[your_username]/.xsession

…and make it look like this:

#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/lxsession -s Lubuntu -e LXDE

Save .xsession, reboot your computer, and try connecting from your Remote Desktop client. Voilà!