Linux

Owned by Jorge Olmos (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Mar 22, 2022 by FlexVDI
2 min read

Most recommended distributions

Spice is the protocol used by flexVDI to connect to virtual desktops. Red Hat is the most active developer and endorser of the spice protocol, and so Red Hat Linux and its relatives Fedora and CentOS are our most recommended options, as they:

  • include the needed software components by default.
  • Have very updated versions available in their repositories.

Fedora is more oriented to desktop usage, so it would be prefered to CentOS. Red Hat Linux would be the best option if guest OS support is required.

From our experience, KDE and Gnome 3 based desktops are the heaviest, and feel slower than other desktops.

Gnome 2 or MATE based desktops give a good user experience, and are lighter, being the latest Fedora MATE our first option for Linux Desktops. To disabe animations in mate 1.6 in order to make it faster, open dconf-editor and go to org > mate > marco > general. Check "reduced-resources". 

flexvdi guest tools

flexvdi-guest-tools provide:

  • cups backend and filter , providing flexVDI Follow Me Printing feature: printers of the local device of the end user are available from the virtual desktop.
  • SSO for LightDM
  • flexVDI guest agent, that allows the end user to reboot, shutdown, ... its guest, even when the OS is not running, and more.

From the web

flexVDI-guest-tools are available from https://depot.flexvdi.com/guest-tools/

Choose a version which two first version digits (3.1, 3.0, ...) match the version of the flexVDI server software. You are interested in the files with a name ending in ".sh" for running them in your Linux guest.

From the flexVDI Host

If you have installed a flexVDI infraestructure, you already hvbe one copy of the flexVDI guest tools.

in order to make it available to your guest, you can:

  • With flexVDI Dashboard, in the storage tab, add a "Media image" if the machine des not have one. You will have to stop the machine to attach this virtual hardware.
  • Select Media storage = "Internal MS" and then "File = "guest-tools".
    Then click on "Change media" (if the guest is running) or save changes and start the guest (if it was stopped).

Now your guest has a CD with the software in it. You may have to mount the CD if your system does not automatically do it for you.

Install flexvdi guest tools

Once you have the flexvdi-guest-tools-3.1.x.sh file, as root, execute it with:

sudo PATH_TO_FILE/flexvdi-guest-tools-3.1.x.sh

Install spice-vdagent

The spice-vdagent

Improves the behaviour of the mouse device, enabling "mouse client mode".

Makes the resolution of the virtual screen and the size of the flexVDI client to match, and also has the side effect of making mouse pointer visible during installation on some distros.

In Ubuntu 16, 18, ..., debian, Mint, run:

sudo apt-get install -y spice-vdagent

Then start it with:

spice-vdagent
sudo spice-vdagend

Install qemu guest agent

In Red Hat based distros, run:

sudo yum install qemu-guest-agent

And then start it (once) with:

sudo systemctl start qemu-guest-agent


To install it in debian based distros, like Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install qemu-guest-agent


Install qxl driver

If QXL driver instead of the recommended virtio grahipcs is going to be used, in Red Hat based distros, run:

sudo yum install xorg-x11-drv-qxl

To install it in debian based distros, like Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-qxl