Products › RDP

Remote Desktop for Linux

Wayland-native RDP — server, clients, open-source foundations, and the research that informs the work

FOCUS AREA

RDP on Linux, built for Wayland

RDP is the best-understood remote-desktop protocol in the industry — well-documented, multi-vendor, supported by every Windows install and most thin clients. On Linux, the story has been weaker. The dominant server (xrdp) is an X11-era bridge: good enough for legacy desktops, but it can’t run on Wayland, can’t use hardware encoding cleanly, and can’t share clipboard formats or files.

Lamco Development LLC’s RDP focus area is the alternative: an RDP server built for Wayland, open-source Rust foundations published for the whole ecosystem to use, and a growing set of client and automation tools. The anchor product is Lamco RDP Server; everything else in this focus area either builds toward it, alongside it, or on top of it.

RDP on Linux is separately a prerequisite for Proxmox integration and the upcoming VDI work — those are co-equal focus areas that reuse this foundation. See the Proxmox focus area for the VM-access integration story.

WHY WAYLAND-NATIVE

Legacy Linux RDP vs. Lamco RDP Server

The short technical version. The deeper one lives on the Features page.

X11 + xrdp (legacy stack)

  • — Requires an X11 session; won’t run on modern Wayland-only distros
  • — Software-only encoding, CPU-bound, no GPU path
  • — Text-only clipboard; no file transfer, no image paste
  • — No HDR, no 10-bit color, single monitor
  • — Capture via X SHM — incompatible with Wayland security model

Lamco RDP Server (Wayland-native)

  • — Runs natively on GNOME, KDE, sway, Hyprland, and every wlroots compositor
  • — VA-API / NVENC hardware encoding; H.264, H.265, AV1
  • — File clipboard via XDG Desktop Portal; image and text both work
  • — 10-bit HDR, multi-monitor, per-output DPI
  • — Capture via PipeWire screencast — the sanctioned Wayland path
LAYER STACK

How the pieces stack up

Each layer is independently useful. The crates are MIT/Apache-2.0; the server is BSL 1.1 (Apache-2.0 on 2028-12-31).

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Application layer                                                 │
│   • Lamco RDP Server            (BSL 1.1 → Apache-2.0 2028)       │
│   • lamco-rdp-tools (CLI)       (MIT, coming soon)                │
│   • lamco-rdp-console (PVE)     (coming soon — Proxmox focus)     │
│   • lamco-qemu-rdp (per-VM)     (coming soon — Proxmox focus)     │
└─────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
      │
┌─────▼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Protocol layer — lamco-rdp meta-crate                             │
│   • lamco-rdp-input             (scancode, coordinates)           │
│   • lamco-clipboard-core        (protocol-agnostic utilities)     │
│   • lamco-rdp-clipboard         (IronRDP CliprdrBackend)          │
│   on top of: ironrdp-cliprdr, ironrdp-core (Devolutions)          │
└─────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
      │
┌─────▼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Capture layer — lamco-wayland meta-crate                          │
│   • lamco-portal                (XDG Desktop Portal)              │
│   • lamco-pipewire              (PipeWire capture + DMA-BUF)      │
│   • lamco-video                 (frame pipeline, RDP bitmaps)     │
└─────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
      │
┌─────▼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ OS layer                                                          │
│   Wayland compositor  ·  xdg-desktop-portal  ·  PipeWire          │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
ANCHOR PRODUCT

Lamco RDP Server

The production Wayland-native RDP server — v1.4.2 shipping on Flatpak, Snap, deb, rpm, and source. Every other item in this focus area either feeds into or consumes it.

Wayland Native
XDG Portals
GPU Accel
NVENC, VA-API
Audio
OPUS, PCM
Written in Rust
Memory safe
Product page → Features Platforms Download
SUPPORTING CAST

Clients, automation, and tooling

A growing portfolio alongside the server. Some public, some in development.

lamco-rdp-tools

COMING SOON

CLI automation toolkit — 55 commands for type, click, screenshot, waitfor, clip-set, CI/CD workflows. “The vncdotool for RDP.” MIT licensed.

Learn more →

RDP GUI client

IN DEVELOPMENT

A standard RDP desktop client. Primary role today: backbone for downstream releases (tools, console, tests). Later: may ship as a separately-released end-user client.

lamco-probe

IN DEVELOPMENT

A CLI RDP probe / capability tester. Inspects what a target RDP server supports, reports round-trip characteristics, and feeds integration tests. Shape still forming — dedicated canonical page will land when it’s ready.

RDP test client

INTERNAL

Private integration-testing client used against the server in CI. Not a distributed product; mentioned for completeness.

OPEN SOURCE FOUNDATIONS

Published Rust crate families

The layers under every Lamco RDP product. MIT/Apache-2.0. Usable independently.

lamco-wayland

meta v0.4.5 · portal / pipewire / video

Wayland screen capture, XDG Portal integration, frame pipeline, and RDP bitmap conversion.

Browse crates →

lamco-rdp

meta v0.6.2 · input / clipboard-core / clipboard-rdp

RDP protocol extensions on top of IronRDP — input translation, clipboard interoperability, file transfer.

Browse crates →
TECHNOLOGY DEEP-DIVES

How the work gets done

Longer-form explanations of the hard parts.

Wayland

Why Wayland-native matters and how we talk to compositors
Video encoding

H.264, H.265, AV1 and the multi-codec story
Color management

10-bit, HDR, and getting color through RDP intact
Performance

Latency, framerate, and where the budgets go
Service discovery

How RDP endpoints announce themselves on a network
Research whitepapers

Multi-codec pipeline, capture timing, and ongoing research

Related focus areas & pages

Proxmox focus area

Where the RDP foundation is integrated with Proxmox VE — browser console, per-VM RDP, host health.
Open source index

The full set of published Lamco libraries — Rust crates, NetKit on Maven Central, Laminate.
Downloads

Flatpak, Snap, native deb/rpm, source tarball — the distribution surface for the server.