r/linuxadmin • u/crankysysadmin • 10d ago
Linux VDI
Anyone here running a linux VDI platform? Tell me about it.
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u/aals1011 9d ago
Why are you asking? what use case are you trying to solve?
We are testing Citrix Linux VDA. its working fine with no issues thus far.
I've came to know Citrix is now supporting multi session for Linux VDA. Unfortunately, we don't have a use case for it yet. We are providing dedicated Linux VDIs for some of our developers.
I've provided them previously with Ubuntu 24 but had been getting continuous registration issues with citrix environment. I'm providing them now with Debian 13 and its been good thus far.
I feel after reading some of your comments you want to get into VDI or examining feasibility of it. Its a great technology. I wouldn't recommend it for its price. its expensive in terms of hardware and compute, and in licensing. In our case, we need to pay licensing for Citrix for VDI, Microsoft for RDS (multi session), and from HW and hypervisor have their own licensing , and we are paying for them by extension of course. don't forget to count the actual HW and endpoint HW also, and on top of that other Infra expensive such as storage ,network and FW/WAF ,where the latter might not be expensive but you need to account for in case you need to expand.
I would recommend VDI in case you want to deliver virtual apps only, or you have a 24/7 user you can get them working on shifts on multi session VDAs, or maybe you are in a government sector with high security clearance and require to provide access to outsource users. in this case I think VDI will be easier to provide.
otherwise, user MDM or good old VPN solutions are cheaper.
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u/crankysysadmin 9d ago
We have a large number of people who want GUI access to Linux for projects or for limited periods of time. We don't want to buy them second desktops when they already have a good laptop, we do not wan people running local VMs since we can't control those, and we do not want people running linux bare mental on laptops since we don't have the tooling to enforce compliance like we can with macOS and Windows. So if you really need a linux laptop, it's going to have to be through remote access to something.
To be clear we are a very heavy Linux organization with 70% of our servers being Linux based, but supporting a whole bunch of linux laptops is just not happening for a lot of different reasons.
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u/aals1011 8d ago
MDM supportability on linux is limited. I think VDI will serve you well. Just put in mind you might see later on expenses that you haven't counted for in your project.
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u/Cendio 8d ago
Hey u/crankysysadmin, good to see you again. Still in the Linux VDI world I see.
Same as before from our side: ThinLinc, users get their own session on the server, not a full VM each. Native client or browser. Free for up to 10 concurrent users if you want to poke at it. We still maintain TigerVNC and noVNC under it.
What size and apps are you looking at this time?
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u/HeadlessChild 10d ago
Previously via Citrix LVDA and now via Omnissa Horizon. Running Ubuntu works pretty good. If I had the choice I would pick Citrix over Omnissa.
I suggest configuring your master image with at least Ansible but preferably using something like Packer for provisioning of your master image as well.