First and foremost, we would like to thank all of you for your interest in Remote Desktop Manager on all platforms, including Linux. While we do not have an official Linux port of RDM, there is a workaround to run it on Linux: using Remote Desktop Manager for Android. Lately, there are more and more options for running Android on a Linux system. They require some tinkering and elbow grease, but isn’t that part of the fun of the Linux world?
At this moment, there are several ways to run Android apps on Linux. However, they are not all robust, and most are still in alpha stage. We’re keeping a close eye on the development of these tools. For now, we’ve managed to run the RDM for Android APK with Shashlik, an open source project to run Android apps on Linux in a simulated environment.
NOTE: We did encounter certain bugs with Shashlik, which we will discuss below. Bear in mind that this is not a perfect solution, but it does allow the use of RDM in a Linux environment.
Prerequisites
In order for this process to work, you will be required to have the following:
- Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and up
- A user with sudo/admin privileges for the installation
- Latest GPU drivers for your Linux system
- Python 3 installed on your system
- Hardware virtualization (e.g. Intel VT-x)
Known Issues
There are some bugs when running Shashlik and Remote Desktop Manager. Sometimes, when trying to run Remote Desktop Manager, it is unable to start. If you do not have the latest GPU drivers, then RDP and other graphic connections are unusable. You may be required to rerun the APK install to make RDM start properly again. Though there are some small issues with Shashlik, as of right now neither Anbox nor ARChon are compatible with our APK.
Steps
1. Download the Shashlik Debian package
Head on over to http://www.shashlik.io/download/ and download their .deb package.
2. Install Shashlik
You can double-click on the Shashlik package, or open your favorite terminal and run the following commands:
$ sudo dpkg -i /path/to/the/shashlik/deb/file
$ sudo apt-get install -f
Make sure you have the libgl1-mesa-dev package in your system. You can install it with the following command:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev
3. Download the Remote Desktop Manager APK
We have made the APK available on our website. You can download it directly using the following links:
Latest version: https://cdn.devolutions.net/download/Linux/rdm/RemoteDesktopManager.apk
Version 3.6: https://cdn.devolutions.net/download/Linux/rdm/RemoteDesktopManager36.apk
The Password Vault Manager APKs can be obtained from here:
Latest version: https://cdn.devolutions.net/download/Linux/pvm/PasswordVaultManager.apk
Version 3.6: https://cdn.devolutions.net/download/Linux/pvm/PasswordVaultManager36.apk
4. Install the APK with Shashlik
Now that Shashlik is installed on your system, you can install the APK. Shashlik is located in /opt/shashlik, so all the scripts are in the /opt/shashlik/bin directory. I recommend adding /opt/shashlik/bin to your path to make life easier, but it is up to you. Navigate to where the APK is located and run the following command:
$ /opt/shashlik/bin/shashlik-install /path/to/the/apk/file
You will also need to create a Shashlik system folder. To do so, please run the following command:
$ mkdir -p $HOME/.local/share/shashlik/system
If you see a python3 error that says that ‘kdialog’ is not there, do not panic! This is simply because most of the development of this project is done in KDE.
5. Run Remote Desktop Manager for Android
Shashlik automatically runs in a small window, but you can change that by modifying one line in the “shashlik-run” script. Open “shashlik-run” with sudo rights and your favorite editor. Find the line where it says “-noskin”, and replace it with “-skin”, “1280x720p”, to make Shashlik run in a 720p resolution. I also encourage you to increase the “-memory” if you can spare it. You can now run Remote Desktop Manager with Shashlik using the following command:
$ /opt/shashlik/bin/shashlik-run com.devolutions.remotedesktopmanager RDM
It may take a few seconds to load, but eventually it will start up RDM for Android.
Troubleshooting
If you find that Shashlik is not starting, try rerunning the “shashlik-install” command. This usually fixes the problem. If it continues, try deleting the Shashlik folder located in $HOME/.local/share and running the “shashlik-install” command again.
Hopefully, everything went well and you’re now running RDM for Android on Linux! We are working on making RDM accessible across all major platforms, and we’re keeping a close eye on developments for running Android apps on Linux.