Author Archives: Markus Killer

vba-edit 0.4.1 released

vba-edit 0.4.0 released

RustDesk plus Tailscale

RustDesk in combination with Tailscale/Headscale offers a near-perfect and completely free Remote Access solution for homelab enthusiasts.

This is so far the best tool I’ve found to remotely connect to ARM-based Linux desktops (e.g. Oracle Free Tier Ampère Instances with up to 4vCores and 24GB RAM or any of Apple’s M1/M2/M3/M4/… systems). For Intel-/AMD-based Linux desktops, however, I still prefer Cendio’s ThinLinc (on high resolution displays with the following workaround). For a matrix of client/server matches that worked best for me, see: overview of my favourite RDP client<->server combinations.

In combination with Tailscale (and if self-hosting is preferred/important Headscale) it offers secure and easy GUI access to computer and virtualised desktops in a homelab (plus cloud) setup:

No server is needed for direct peer-to-peer connections (e.g. with tailscale full domain names or with internal IPs in homelab):

NB: Don’t forget to enable 2-Factor-Authentication.

Related external posts/reviews/tutorials:

Remote Desktop Access – Overview of my favourite client-server combinations 2025

The following combinations have worked best for me:
[last update: 14/05/2025]

Remote Desktops	Windows Desktop	Mac Desktop	Linux Desktop Intel-/AMD-based	Linux Desktop ARM64 / aarch64
Clients
Windows Client	Windows RDP (builtin)	RustDesk	ThinLinc*	RustDesk
Mac Client	Windows App	RustDesk	ThinLinc*	RustDesk
Linux Client	RustDesk	RustDesk	ThinLinc*	RustDesk
iOS/iPad Client	Windows App	RustDesk	RustDesk	RustDesk
Android Client (untested)	Remote Desktop App	RustDesk	RustDesk	RustDesk

* on high-resolution/Retina displays: use this workaround

If you’d like to enable external access to resources in your homelab or in your cloud environment, please don’t forget to choose a reasonably secure setup:

VPN (e.g. Wireguard)
Tailscale (with or without Headscale)
Twingate (Zero Trust approach)
Key-based SSH plus SSH-Tunnels to specific ports/web apps in homelab
Windows RDP Gateway-Server
etc.

Crisp Cendio Thinlinc sessions on high resolution displays (e.g. 4K)

For month I’ve been trying to get this to work and I finally found a solution, which is a lot easier than I initially thought it would be.

Problem: If you want to connect remotely to a Linux desktop (running ThinLinc server) via ThinLinc* client, it has often been impossible to get the remote desktop working at the native resolution of a 4K display (3840×2160). In my case the highest possible resolution to choose from in the remote systems’ display settings was 1920×1080, resulting in a blurred linux desktop. While ThinLinc still offered a superior remote desktop experience to all tools tested, the blurred display kept bugging me. My aim was to get the sharpest and most responsive Cendio ThinLinc sessions on high-resolution displays possible.

NB. The following workaround also helped me solve display resolution problems with other remote desktop clients (e.g. NoMachine, VNC variants).

[Update 19/02/2025]: The best alternative to ThinLinc for connections to ARM-based linux and macOS remote desktops (e.g. RasperyPI, Oracle Free Tier Ampère Instances, Apple’s M1/M2/M3/M4) is RustDesk, which is available for all platforms and allows peer-to-peer connections (ip<->ip) without the need for a server if used in small homelab situations. Unfortunately, thinlinc server is only available for Intel-/AMD-based systems.

RustDesk does offer superior handling of display resolutions, however, for remote desktops on Intel-/AMD-based platforms thinlinc is by far the best solution for connections to Linux desktops. In these cases, I prefer to use the following workaround (also see overview of my favourite RDP client<->server combinations)

Solution on Windows 11 and macOS with 4K external display and Mac retina display

(might also work on other high-resolution displays)

jump to macOS display settings

Step 1 – Set display scaling of the display(s) you want to use for your remote connection to 100% prior to initiating the remote connection

On Windows:

Right-click on Windows-Desktop and choose: “Display settings”. Scroll down to scaling and make sure that your system does not use “custom scaling”. Choose 100% from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can navigate to Windows Settings > System > Display settings to find the same menu.

(Screenshots are from a German version of Windows 11)

NB: If you are using more than one display, make sure to adjust scaling to 100% on all screens you intend to use for your remote connection. Also make sure that there is no “custom scaling” enabled.

On macOS:

On macOS, display scaling can be set under: System Preferences/Displays:

Choose the setting labelled “More Space” for native retina display’s resolution.

NB: If you are using more than one display, make sure to adjust scaling to 100% on all screens you intend to use for your remote connection.

Step 2 – Now, start thinlinc client and connect to your remote linux desktop:

(Don’t be discouraged by the tiny icons and font size, you can switch back to your normal scaling as soon as your thinlinc session is over.)

Step 3 – On the remote system, you now have the opportunity to choose your native display resolution and adjust scaling to a more convenient factor:

Configure Cendio ThinLinc Server on Pop_OS!

In order to run ThinLinc Server on Pop_OS! An additional profile needs to be created

$ sudo nano /opt/thinlinc/etc/conf.d/profiles.hconf

default=pop
order=unity ubuntu gnome gnome-classic kde xfce cinnamon mate lxde pop  <-------
[... rest of file ...]

[/profiles/pop]
xdg_session=pop
name=Pop
description=The Pop_OS Gnome desktop environment
screenshot=
cmdline=
testcmd=
description_from_testcmd=false

For details see:

https://community.thinlinc.com/t/create-a-custom-executable-profile-zorin-budgie-pop-os-etc/1226/1

vba-edit 0.3.0 released

vba-edit 0.2.1 released

All existing entries in the corpus tool database have been updated

After a long rather inactive period on langui.ch, all the corpus tool entries in the database have been updated. The following sort order should enable visitors to figure out which projects are still actively developed and which projects are no longer maintained: