Bug#1026244: gnome-remote-desktop: No support for VNC

[Ben Westover]

Package: gnome-remote-desktop
X-Debbugs-Cc: m...@benthetechguy.net
Version: 43.2-1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

When I run grdctl, none of the VNC-related options are available. I see
that the Debian packaging has chosen not to build it. Why is this? I
need to use VNC for my job, and gnome-remote-desktop is the only
solution I know of that supports Wayland well.

At the very least, if adding VNC back to the package isn't an option,
can it at least be removed from the package description?

> This daemon enables GNOME to offer remote desktop sharing using VNC
> with PipeWire.

It's a bit misleading to say your package supports VNC when it doesn't.

Thanks,
- --
Ben Westover

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bookworm/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: arm64 (aarch64)

Kernel: Linux 6.1.0-asahi (SMP w/8 CPU threads)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_CPU_OUT_OF_SPEC
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LCCTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages gnome-remote-desktop depends on:
ii dconf-gsettings-backend [gsettings-backend] 0.40.0-3
ii fuse3 3.12.0-1
ii init-system-helpers 1.65.2
ii libc6 2.36-6
ii libcairo2 1.16.0-7
ii libepoxy0 1.5.10-1
ii libfreerdp-server2-2 2.9.0+dfsg1-1
ii libfreerdp2-2 2.9.0+dfsg1-1
ii libfuse3-3 3.12.0-1
ii libglib2.0-0 2.74.2-1
ii libmutter-11-0 43.0-2
ii libnotify4 0.8.1-1
ii libpipewire-0.3-0 0.3.62-1
ii libsecret-1-0 0.20.5-3
ii libtss2-esys-3.0.2-0 3.2.0-4
ii libtss2-mu0 3.2.0-4
ii libtss2-rc0 3.2.0-4
ii libtss2-tctildr0 3.2.0-4
ii libwinpr2-2 2.9.0+dfsg1-1
ii libxkbcommon0 1.4.1-1
ii pipewire 0.3.62-1
ii wireplumber 0.4.12-1+b1

gnome-remote-desktop recommends no packages.

gnome-remote-desktop suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

[Andreas Henriksson]

Hello Ben Westover,

Thanks for your bug report. Followup comments below.

On Sat, Dec 17, 2022 at 12:40:43AM +0000, Ben Westover wrote:
> Package: gnome-remote-desktop
> X-Debbugs-Cc: m...@benthetechguy.net
> Version: 43.2-1
> Severity: important
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> When I run grdctl, none of the VNC-related options are available. I see
> that the Debian packaging has chosen not to build it. Why is this?

I've looked at debian/rules[1] and the debian packaging git repo[2]
which made me start doubting that "Debian" has choosen to not build VNC
support.

I looked at the build log[3] and indeed noticed that VNC support was
disabled at configure/build time.

I then looked up what the default setting[4] for VNC was and saw
that it was false (disabled) by default.

All of the above information can be found linked from the package
tracker page[5].

I then went to look at the upstream git history[6] and the commit
which disables the option, which has the following explanation on
why:

```
RDP offers better performance, better privacy, and better client
app availability.

Also, gnome-control-center 42 only advertises RDP, not VNC

Therefore, we recommend distros & users use RDP and don't recommend VNC.
```

We could ofcourse override upstreams default settings, but given
the above recommendation from upstream there would need to be
a really good motivation to why we should do that!

> I need to use VNC for my job, and gnome-remote-desktop is the only
> solution I know of that supports Wayland well.

Why do you need VNC (instead of RDP)?

>
> At the very least, if adding VNC back to the package isn't an option,
> can it at least be removed from the package description?
>
> > This daemon enables GNOME to offer remote desktop sharing using VNC
> > with PipeWire.
>
> It's a bit misleading to say your package supports VNC when it doesn't.

The package description was likely put together when this was initially
packaged. As Debian is a volunteer effort, please consider submitting
a merge-request on salsa.debian.org with a new updated description
(which you can probably help scrape together based on an updated
description that might be found on the upstream webpage for
gnome-remote-desktop).

Regards,
Andreas Henriksson


[1]: https://tracker.debian.org/media/packages/g/gnome-remote-desktop/rules-43.2-1
[2]: https://salsa.debian.org/gnome-team/gnome-remote-desktop/-/commits/debian/master/debian
[3]: https://buildd.debian.org/status/fetch.php?pkg=gnome-remote-desktop&arch=amd64&ver=43.2-1&stamp=1670360554&raw=0
[4]: https://sources.debian.org/src/gnome-remote-desktop/43.2-1/meson_options.txt/#L18
[5]: https://tracker.debian.org/gnome-remote-desktop
[6]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-remote-desktop/-/commit/55ce55afa1ddb502d4c8e13ae813f348d5f76402