r/linuxadmin 10d ago

Linux VDI

Anyone here running a linux VDI platform? Tell me about it.

17 Upvotes

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7

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.

3

u/crankysysadmin 10d ago

What is your use case? how many users? what industry? what types of applications? Why VDI over whatever else?

3

u/HeadlessChild 10d ago

Mainly two purposes. The main purpose is to provide a Linux environment for remote work used by our R&D organisation. More or less a jump station to their Linux workstations on-prem. The secondary purpose is to provide a standardized environment for our ASIC department with focus on security. These are not used for remote work. Linux environments all the way through.

3

u/zenety 10d ago

We just did it the other way around, Omnissa to Citrix. Also Ubuntu 24.04. Works perfect in my opinion (we also have a batch non domain joined using Freeipa, these are a bit more finnicky). Machines are provisioned using Terraform then joined to the Delivery group using Ansible.

1

u/HeadlessChild 10d ago

ndj with freeipa for pools or persistent machines? I never got it to work on Ubuntu for Citrix.

2

u/zenety 10d ago

Ndj for persistent machines yeah

1

u/crankysysadmin 10d ago

What's your use case? how many users? what industry? what types of applications? Why VDI over whatever else?

1

u/Mic_sne 10d ago

Ask for the price too

1

u/zenety 10d ago

Price? As in Citrix pricing? We got it cheaper than Omnissa

1

u/zenety 10d ago

Researchers in healthcare, around 100, specifically using python, visual code etc. It's honestly mostly because we already had Citrix up and running, so no new pipeline for physical machines. The users mostly just jump to new hosts using SSH from there anyways. Also some usage from university's etc.

1

u/DialecticEnjoyer 9d ago

I take the nuclear option and reimage the entire thin client with a stripped and optimized Ubuntu or rhel image.