RDPClient

I spotted this on a very old thread …

I have been working with Andrew Sellors, the author of !RDPClient for RISC OS. We have been trying to update !RDPClient to run on the Beagle Board.

…and wondered if anyone had managed to get !RDPClient working with any of the new hardware, especially the Raspberry Pi? I’ve had a good play, and seemingly get pretty much nowhere. Occasionally, an icon appears on the iconbar, but then nothing else happens. Then it dies with an error=20.

Intrigued, as I’d missed this application previously, I just downloaded it and fired it up. Worked first time on my RPi :-) I’m connecting to Win 7 Professional running on an ESXi (5.1) VM. RPi is on the same subnet as the VM.

First impressions are that its working really well, although I’ve only had a quick 2 minute play with it. Screen update seems to be good.

RDPClient 0.99 (05-Apr-2010)
RO5.21 (10-Dec-13)
Standard UK built RPi (512Mbyte version).

Got errors for the Sound module et al as expected. I read that this needs to be updated for running on 32bit RISC OS etc. Not done this yet…

Wow. This could be really useful as it gives me a way of accessing my VMs from RISC OS. There isn’t even an ESXi client for (ARM) Linux, let alone RISC OS.

Ralph

rdp 0.88 (5/4/2010) – works perfectly with ARMiniX RISC OS 5.21 as provided by RCOMP. Linked to Windows 7 ultimate laptop.

I need to apologise and update myself! Once I’d found it, I resorted to RTFM!

I have now got it working, albeit sporadically. Sometimes on running, I get a black/blank screen that just sits there and required an Alt-Break to move it on. And then it will just work next time I run it!

I also seem to get a lot of ERROR: Cache file read error -442502472 ’ ofla,ofla,ofla,ofla (with the usual accents). Anyone else getting this?

!RDPClient seems to be working pretty rock-solid on my RPi. The only issues that I’ve had are:

1. When logging onto my Win7 PC the user account name on the initial login screen is shown as a load of spurious characters, similar to what you describe above. However selecting “Other User” I can then log in as usual and them the RDP session works as normal. This might be a result of one of the encryption settings in the login script (not checked this yet).

2. The mouse scroll wheel is currently not supported :-(

Overall as a RISC OS networking product it seems very good, and certainly much better than any VNC client I’ve ever used on RISC OS. Hat’s off to Andy Sellors and all the other developers from the past…

If you need a RPi based RDP client with a very fast boot-up time, then this could by a good solution for you (I’ve no idea how long it takes get into the RDP session from a cold start on Raspbian, but I’d wager that RISC OS is quicker;-).

I’m using !RDPCLient in 1920×1080 resolution in 32M colours, and it all seems to be tickety-boo:-)

There’s an error logging system for !RDPClient. Do you get any useful errors occurring in your log ? I suspect that your issues are either:

1. Networking issues.
2. RISC OS issues (i.e. you’ve got something ‘broken’ in your RO build).
3. RPi hardware issues (broken RPi – unlikely).
4. Incorrect RPi settings. Try slowing everything down, back to the defaults.

YMMV.

Ralph

It was a configuration issue with RDPClient. I had set the -P flag to use Persistent Bitmap Caching, hoping that would make everything a bit faster, but since I unset the flag, it’s all been just marvellous!

I kind of think it needs a bit of a front-end or some sort of “saved connections hotlist” and it would be little short of miraculous!

I tried !RDPClient last night on my Iyonix to my Ubuntu 14.04 box. I was very favourably impressed. I had used Avalanche, but !RDPClient is much better – it’s much more responsive and is what I’ll be using in future.

The only snag is that you need to be reasonably techy to get it to work satisfactorily. You have to create your own Obey file with all the parameters, and there are more parameters than you might expect – before I put in the argument for colour depth, the display was a complete mess, for example.

I found I had to download and install xrdp and xfce4 to get Ubuntu 14.04 to act as server, because the normal desktop doesn’t work. Once I did, I was amazed to see the standard desktop on the box’s own monitor, and the xfce desktop on the Iyonix – and completely independent of each other.

I too have been using !RDPCLient to access Win7 and WinServer 2008 Virtual Machines running on a VMWare ESXi server on my RISC OS RPi. I’d only really heard about !RDPClient as a result of this thread.

I too have been very impressed. Once the !RDPClient is setup and running correctly it just works. Screen redraw is acceptably fast for normal work, but would be too slow for continuous moving pictures.

!RDPClient can also handle multiple Remote Desktop sessions open simultaneously to different VMs (i.e. PCs). Really cool being able to switch back and forth between different PCs using the RISC OS Desktop :-)

The only issue that I have is that the scroll wheel support for the mouse has not been implemented yet. Other than that, !RDPClient could become a killer application for RISC OS on an RPi.

Ralph

Has anyone got sound working with RDPClient? I have all the right sound modules running and the Remote PC recognises that sound sharing is enabled (the remote audio device is selected), but I don’t get a peep from my ARMX6. As I get sound over a Windows-Windows RDP connection, I assume it’s RISC OS that’s at fault.

Tried with Windows 7 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro, Windows 10 and Raspbian…

I keep getting a type 5 error on the 27 Oct 2016 Pi ROM

I assume this is with the high vectors?

I know this is an old topic, but the question is still valid.

Has anyone got sound working with RDPClient?

I have the two modules loaded on a Ras Pi running 5.24
StreamManager v0.03
SharedSoundBuffer v0.07
but both of these are quite old – April 2004

The video connects OK to Windows 7, but no sound.

No joy here I’m afraid :(

I’ve spent hours trying to get RDPClient to build on a modern system, there are issues with the version of DeskLib used.
Rick Murray also kindly devoted some time to this and also hit a brick wall.
Sprow also had a look and did make some changes, but the resulting build failed on modern systems.

I did have it working on a RiscPC and Iyonix at one stage using the client to play the sound.

I think the issue is the version of SharedSound as I have 1.07 here which may have come from a RiscPC and Select or was it the other way round, its been so long since I used it?

Below is the Connection file I used.

Run <RDPClient$Dir>.Connect -D f -z -C mypc -u xxxx -p xxxxx -g screen -a screen -q -x 0×20 -r sound:remote xxx.xxx.×.xxx

xxx is the User/Password and Ip address of the PC you are connecting to.

Now the PC’s are up to Windows 10 it presents another challange as you have to take off Network Authentication which causes a security risk.

Doug

Thank you both for the comments. It is appreciated.

Doug, I have tried your file which gives a full screen connection; but still no sound.

Sadly, I am still looking for a way to watch ITV Hub live as the neighbour’s trees have grown so that they blank out our Freesat TV. (The TV screen with a RO Ras Pi is downstairs and the PC upstairs)

Hi John,

I have played around and got sound coming out of the actual remote PC.

The sound either has to be played through the PC speakers or via the standard 3.5mm sound out socket.

It will not play on the Iyonix even in that configuration or if the PC sound is going out on the HDMI link.

So Sound:Remote setting and through the 3.5mm sound out socket on the PC is all that seems to work at the moment.

Hope that helps for testing at least.

Hope that helps for testing at least.

It will keep me occuppied for a while, I think.