Hello all,
I’m planning to install Linux Mint on the notebooks of some relatives as it’s not compatible with Windows 11 and thus not getting security updates anymore. They are absolutely not tech savvy and only using very basic stuff (web browser, print documents, maybe low level office stuff). Still I’m looking for a way to support them with some kind of remote control software if they have an issue. On Windows I liked Teamviewer for it’s simplicity, they can double click the icon and tell me the code that is displayed and that’s it. Is there something similar for Linux which doesn’t require complex setup on their end? FOSS is a plus, but not a must have.
Regards, rbn
supporting 400+ laptops from previously tech-illiterate users in the field. we tried everything for remote patching and fixing things and nothing worked universally. that includes stuff shipped with them (ssh, Gnome and Plasma RDP, VNC, etc) and 3rd party FOSS things. wireguard-ing all them laptops for remote access introduces buncha complications at this scale.
only thing that works: bring it to the “shop”, ansible script to exfil home subvolume, install fresh ubuntu (working on replacing that with debian), patch snap and bunch of other annoyances, restore /home.
seeing as how you only got grams and co. to take care of, wireguard + ssh is the only low-overhead, works-most-of-the-time solution.
Did you try meshcentral? It’s a selfnhosted MDM.
Not FOSS, but AnyDesk is pretty nice, easy to use, and works on almost all platforms. For unsupervised access you have to change some settings in person, but otherwise it’s as simple as “start the red program, tell me the (persistent) number, and click the green accept button”
I have SSH with key based auth for connecting to my grandma over Tailscale. If I need remote desktop, I do VNC over another SSH-tunnel.
i would do vnc through tailscale or reverse ssh
Get an SSH tunnel working first.
That’ll find all the problems poking holes through home routers, dynamic public IPs, etc.
Once you’ve got that part running, then you can look at VNC or… and hear me out… I just run the X11 apps remotely. So I’m opening their apps on my laptop, changing the config for their session and it’s done.
I reconfigured Thunderbird that way when we moved email providers foe the family’s email.
No need for VNC to transmit all their screen when just the app is needed 😉
I like the idea. But vnc helps with troubleshooting because you can see their screen and walk them through steps so they won’t have to call you again. Thats much harder without visuals because quickly everything becomes “this thing over there”, frequently changing frame of reference.
RustDesk is excellent, it’s basically open source TeamViewer. And if you don’t want to use their servers, you can even host your own.
Did they clear up those China allegations?
Do they need to provide a back door?
Thank you very much, that GUI looks very similar to Teamviewer which they already know.
if you don’t want to use their servers, you can even host your own
I didn’t download and try it yet. Do you know if you can indeed use their servers as well without self-hosting? I went to their website and scrolled through the GitHub FAQ and at first sight I can only see the self-hosted option. They even advertise it as ‘non SaaS’.
Yes, you can just install and use it straight away, no need to mess with self-hosting if you don’t want to. You also don’t need a subscription, that just unlocks some extra features.
Once you install the client, it will connect to the public server and give you a message of “For faster connections use your own server” or similar, but thats it. You can test that with your own machine (or android/ios if you don’t have a second pc)
Use windows 10 21h2 iot ltsc. Security updates till 2032.
It will buy you some time to see how things shake out with windows.
That sounds like an interesting fallback and better than Windows 11. Do you need a new licence for that or can you just change from Windows 10 Pro to IOT LTSC?
Someone already said massgrave, and they’re right, but I wanna be 100% clear: Microsoft can’t take these away. If they did then smart fridges would be complaining about how they’re not registered, massive enterprises would have to completely change how they provision systems, pc manufacturers would have to change their processes and even if it was as simple as a change to the generic disk image they ship (it’s not) they’d have to handle all the systems out there in the world.
And
Even if Microsoft went ahead anyway and removed the ability to use some method (like they did with kms38, which had nothing to do with mas and everything to do with addressing the end of the Unix epoch) there are methods they cant effectively remove like hwid.
Anyway, go to the massgrave page about 21h2 iot ltsc and read up.
massgrave.dev
Thanks, but this seems to be rather an unofficial hack, no? If Microsoft decides to block this approach, the setup may cause trouble out of a sudden which I’d like to avoid as my relatives live quite far away.
well yeah, it surely is. win10 iot ltsc itself is defo getting support till 2032, but massgrave’s hwid/tsforge may get blocked at some point, though most people highly doubt that since m$ doesn’t really care at this point. (heck, the massgrave repos are hosted on m$ owned github) in addition to that, massgrave’s hwid mode generates an hwid on microsoft’s servers just like genuine windows licenses, so i’m pretty sure it’ll remain working, even if the method to generate hwid gets blocked somehow…
i do believe switching to a gnu/linux distro is a much better choice, but this is also an option if your relatives really prefer using windows or need to.
I’m using Tailscale plus the built-in RDP in GNOME with the Remmina client.
I love Linux, and use it on all machines and devices possible, but I would never push my non tech savvy family to use it. My wife has a non windows 11 compatible with an i5 7200u CPU. I installed windows 11 on it very easily. She is happy, and the laptop works perfectly.
I would first ask your relatives if they really want Linux or if they would prefer windows 11.
If they want Linux, mint is probably the best non tech savvy option. Then use tightvnc or similar with an ssh tunnel, tailscale or something similar. Create a desktop shortcut that launches and creates the connection.
My non techsavy mother has been using Linux mint for about 4 months now without problems after decades of windows. She’s been retired for years.
Just saying, it’s possible. It’s even quite painless.
While it is good to have empathy and understanding for less technical folks, OP may be in a better position to know what is realistic for their family and level of support they can provide
Thanks for your post.
IMHO Windows is getting harder to use with every update. Context and start menus are changing, you get annoyed by One Drive, asked to use a Microsoft account for everything, suddenly stuff like Notepad has Copilot integration, suddenly links open in Edge instead of your default browser and you’re confused that your bookmarks are gone etc. Apart from that, hacks to install Windows 11 on non-supported hardware might work fine today, but may break with every next update.
I moved my mum to Linux Mint one year ago and so far didn’t have issues or complaints. In fact she’s super happy with the Solitaire game as it does have way more play modes while not having any annoying advertisements. She’s using Firefox and LibreOffice which she already had on Windows before. It was less of a deal for her than a new Android major release on her phone.
But my mom is living much closer to me. In worst case I can fix any issue in person. Unlike these other relatives. There I need some kind of support access for troubleshooting.
I’m not denying windows 11 is a huge pile of crap. It’s absolutely terrible and not designed for the user. Totally agree with all that.
But there are no hacks required to install it on old hardware. You just have to do a fresh install. If you want to upgrade from 10 to 11 then I agree you need to edit the registry which you could consider a hack, although very basic.
In fact there are less hacks required to install / upgrade to windows 11 then there are to install any Linux distro.
Also your point about risk and non supported hardware is not correct. Microsoft don’t support any hardware. They provide an os and updates, and any device with a genuine copy of windows will receive all and any updates, and it won’t just randomly stop working. Windows is just an os. As long as it is compiled for the correct CPU architecture, it is just as supported as any other hardware. The hardware is supported by individual drivers, normally provided by the hardware manufacturer, not Microsoft.
All my point is don’t push the change on people, give them a fair and informed choice.
give them a fair and informed choice.
I think to make an informed choice you need a certain understanding of what an operating system is at all and what might be differences etc. I’m talking about people who are afraid that their emails disappear from the webmailer if they buy a new laptop.
From my experience it’s important that, after booting the PC, they immediately find the 1-x icons on the desktop to open the browser etc. Within the browser they need bookmarks to find webmail, banking etc.
They won’t try to install new software, enter commands in the terminal or tweak around with the settings.
But to calm you down a bit: if they really don’t like it, they can stick with Windows. ;)
I don’t know how recent your experience is with installing Linux, but there are no “hacks” required, haven’t been for many years. In 99.5% of cases everything just works, including sleep & suspend. This is just incredibly outdated or just plain bad advice. There is no tech-savvy-ness needed to use it either.
I’ve installed it for as tech illiterate people as you can imagine and told them “just use it like you have before”. They had a few questions where the answer would usually be “well what did you do before”, told em to try and that was that. I personally found the PCs to feel faster, but that’s my own comment, not theirs. I don’t think they noticed.
But there are no hacks required to install it on old hardware.
Yes there are.
If you used rufus or ventoy, you’ve just applied them without knowing.
Unmodified Windows 11 ISOs will refuse to install on any hardware with a CPU older than Ryzen 3000 or Intel 8000.
In fact there are less hacks required to install / upgrade to windows 11 then there are to install any Linux distro.
What?
On the vast majority of systems, the vast majority of linux distros will install and run with zero “hacks” of any kind. Literally just boot the ISO as-is and have at it.
genuine copy of windows will receive all and any updates
No. On many machines, while windows will install just fine due to the modifications to the installer applied by rufus/ventoy, the yearly major version updates can fail catastrophically.
A lot of hardware will update without issue, but there ABSOLUTELY is risk.
Windows is just an os. As long as it is compiled for the correct CPU architecture, it is just as supported as any other hardware. The hardware is supported by individual drivers, normally provided by the hardware manufacturer, not Microsoft.
You are confusing functional, and supported.
Something can “technically still work” without being officially supported.
Not being supported means Microsoft can make breaking changes in updates, because they made no promises your hardware would be accounted for in the future.
Just because it works today, no longer means it will tomorrow.
My wife and windows could not get along, to many inconsistencies. I set up a repeatable comfig NixOS for her with GNOME. She now never complains about the computer, since it is always the same.
Not Teamviewer-ish but on Windows I’ve set up a simple batch file that launches a reverse VNC connection (using TightVNC) from the remote system to myself in the case someone needs me to look at something on their desktop. Nothing fancy about it, just something simple to get going if you don’t want or need anything more complex.
Haven’t done it on Linux yet but I suspect a bash script + a VNC app (TigerVNC maybe?) would be able to do the same thing.
Please, don’t expose VNC to the internet, ever. It’s a horrendously insecure protocol that uses plaintext passwords of no more than 8 characters and everything that passes over the connection is unencrypted and visible to anyone sniffing the traffic.
Once it was the only option, but there are dozens of better things out there now which should be used, even on a lan or vpn.
