XRDP now starts a Gnome instead of an LXDE session.

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1

For many years I ahve been using XRDP to start a remote LXDE session on my PC via Windows Remote Desktop.

All of a sudden it now starts a Gnome session instead of LXDE. The sysconfig editor still shows LXDE as my default windows manager and I have changed nothing to my knowledge.

I have confirmed that /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager is set correctly to LXDE and logging in via the console (running sddm as the display manager) and selecting the “user/sysem default” session also logs me into an LXDE session. It just seems that it’s only sessions startsed via XRDP default to Gnome.

Just fired up my Tumbleweed virtual machine and that too is configured to have LXDE as default windows manager. It auto logs in to LXDE but a remote session started via Remote Desktop and XRDP fires up a Gnome session which it never used to.

Running XRDP V0.9.13-lp150.91.1 and has a change log date stamp of 24 Apr 2020 along with TigerVNC 1.9.0-lp151.4.3.1 and a date stamp of 8 Jan 2020.

All the above logins were using the same userid of course!

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks.

2

Additionally /etc/alternatives/default-xsession.desktop points to /usr/share/xsessions/plasma5.desktop

and I never get a Plasma sesesion up unless I activly select it.

3

OK. Desktop sessions are cntrolled by /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh and a new version got installed with a date stamp of May 8th.

Now I know where I ahve to fix it at laest.

4

I spent days trying to sort this out on my remote PC. Thanks for the heads up on startwm.sh. I put an edited copy in my remote home folder and now LXQt DE starts instead of the Icewm.

Thank you!!

5

Hi,
I hate to break the bad news to you, but you’re still working with incorrect info.
Here goes…

Several openSUSE versions ago… IIRC somewhere around LEAP 42.1 (but don’t hold me to that version), the sysconfig setting for Desktop selection was deprecated. If you try to use that setting, it hasn’t worked for about 4 years now. And the same thing applies to setting the Window Manager.

Today,
You set the Desktop by

  1. First installing the packages for your Desktop When you install Desktops and Window Managers from the openSUSE repositories, they should also automatically install entries in the appropriate Alternatives system.
  2. After installed, you can now use the Alternatives subsystem to select your desired Desktop.
  3. Besides selecting yoru desired Desktop, you can logout and from the logon screen select your Desktop (or Window Manager without Desktop) but this cannot be guaranteed to set your default Desktop (and/or Window Manager) which should be set by Alternatives.

At the moment, you are not correctly setting the correct Alternatives for Desktop selection, you are setting the selection for the Window Manager.

The Desktop Environment Alternatives

default-displaymanager

To set or display your default Full Desktop and Desktop selections,

update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager

The Window Manager Alternatives

default-xsession.desktop

To set or display your default Window Manager and selections

update-alternatives --config default-xsession.desktop

I haven’t thought about specifying a particular DE when using a remote desktop connections,
But I imagine most straightforward would be to pre-install the DEs you want, then
Login remotely to a text console, then start the DE of your choice. If you login to a DE that’s not your preferred, I imagine you should be able to just logout and at the login screen select your choice of DE or WM and log back in.
The following article describes how to create a file that can help you do this if needed
https://askubuntu.com/questions/135483/how-to-configure-xrdp-to-start-cinnamon-as-default-desktop-session

TSU

6

Hi Tsu, thanks for the reply.

As an experiment, I disabled the startwm.sh file in the home folder of the remote PC. When I logged in I got the icewm environment as expected.

I ran the code as you suggested but nothing changed, in fact the information already had lightdm and lxqt-desktop selected so I am not sure what is meant to happen here.

pi@pi:~> sudo update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager
[sudo] password for root: 
There are 3 choices for the alternative default-displaymanager (providing /usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/default-displaymanager).

  Selection    Path                                  Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/lightdm   15        auto mode
  1            /usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/console   5         manual mode
  2            /usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/lightdm   15        manual mode
  3            /usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/xdm       10        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice
[li], or type selection number: [/li]pi@pi:~> sudo update-alternatives --config default-xsession.desktop
There are 2 choices for the alternative default-xsession.desktop (providing /usr/share/xsessions/default.desktop).

  Selection    Path                                        Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/share/xsessions/lxqt.desktop            20        auto mode
  1            /usr/share/xsessions/icewm-session.desktop   15        manual mode                                                             
  2            /usr/share/xsessions/lxqt.desktop            20        manual mode                                                             
                                                                                                                                              
Press <enter> to keep the current choice
[li], or type selection number: [/li]pi@pi:~>

I am still in Icewm environment - see SUSE Paste

Also if you log out of the desktop, XRDP session it closes the session outright so there is no opportunity to select a desktop at the display manager.

But even that ‘askubuntu’ article referred to editing the startwm.sh file. I’m perplexed as to what the “Alertnatives for Desktop” is meant to do.

Really confused,
Chris.

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