Linux - (X)Ubuntu - RDP-session crashes with xfreerdp & xrdp

TLDR:

If you RDP into a Linux/Xubuntu/Ubuntu PC and you always need two attempts to 'get in' and then the session constantly crashes,

try adding your RDP user to the 'render' group on the remote machine.

That fixed all problems for me.

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I recently set up a new NAS/file-server with Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish.

The RDP host was a Seeedstudio reServer with an Intel Tiger Lake Core i3-1125G4 running the standard xrdp installation from the repos.

Whenever I connected to it with xfreerdp it would show a black window for a short time and then the window would vanish.

On the second try it would open a session correctly. But eventually, often when I clicked through some levels of directories in Thunar file manager, the session would crash. And I mean really crash, any commands running in a terminal session on the remote PC would be ended and a new attempt at RDP-ing in would give me a new 'fresh' session.

I searched a lot and tried a lot of things that were recommended, trying the xrdp install script from here

https://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=17994

to get the newest version, added an ~/.xsession file with recommended content and a lot of other things. Nothing helped.

Since I had already an AMD based remote machine running (with Xubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa) without problems for many years I figured I'll look to see if there are any different drivers for the integrated Intel graphics.

I found this page

https://dgpu-docs.intel.com/driver/installation.html#ubuntu-install-steps

where, apart from a new repository with new Mesa and driver files I saw the mention of this

"In order to access GPU capabilities, the active user must be able to access DRM render nodes in /dev/dri."

So I thought I'll try that first before I screw around more with setup and config changes.

Added my RDP user to the 'render' group on the server and started a new xfreerdp session. Tried everything I had done before to make it crash, it didn't.

Has been stable for days now, never crashed.

And I get an RDP login on the first attempt.

So there.

I don't know why it works and I don't care.

I already spent so much time investigating this problem I won't spend any more time on finding out why it works.

Don't buy a Lenovo laptop/notebook - or you might come unhinged...

A few years ago we bought a Lenovo Yoga 730 for my wife to use for college courses.

Had been in regular use for a while but the last couple of years it was only used a few times a month. 

I recently opened it to update Windows and to my surprise the display cracked in the lower right corner. Further investigation showed that the hinge mount had come off the aluminum lid and when trying to open the lid the hinge pushed against the display and cracked it.

Out of warranty I figured I'll open it up myself and see.

I followed this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDOJ6LheqD4

and after disassembly found this:

That's how they glued the hinge mount to the lid. And that was supposed to last ?

I'd call that planned obsolescence...

Below is how the other side looks, so far the glue still holding:

Looking around on the web I found a large amount of people with the same problem. To some this happened while their device was still under warranty. And for some of them Lenovo refused to cover it under warranty claiming they broke it.

So don't buy a Lenovo laptop or notebook.

Or if it's such a great deal don't buy a just-launched model so you can do an internet search to see if that model has similar problems.