SSH vs RDP with Ubuntu and Windows
Howdy friends - it's been a while.Recently I’ve decided to set up a homelab - nothing too fancy and with some very entry-level computers I’ve had lying around. They live at the bottom of my closet which brings about an interesting issue - how do I use them?These computers are going to live near my network switch (in the bottom of my well-ventilated closet) so a remote way to access the devices will make my life easier once they are set up. Beyond my Raspberry Pi, I’ll have a machine running Windows 10 (called Titan), a machine running Ubuntu (called Prometheus), my main computer running macOS (called Hyperion), and a spare laptop floating around running Mint (called Mimas). I’ll be the first to admit it’s a little excessive. The Raspberry Pi was already set up for remote access via SSH, and the machine running Mint is mostly just for me to say I have a machine running Mint (at least I’m honest) and isn’t really something I need to remote into.
Which leaves us two instances to get access to:
We can start with Titan as that is the easier of the two. Thankfully Microsoft makes it super easy for us with the Remote Desktop Protocol (also known as RDP) for Windows and the Microsoft Remote Desktop app. Here’s a link to a support article that talks about how to set it up but the TL;DR is that you’ll need the IP address of the computer, your user account details and that’s it. The connection quality is great and stable (network depending) and in using it I found no noticeable issues when using it on the day-to-day. Remote access to the full UI is a great boon and makes jumping between the two OSs easier. Thanks Microsoft.
Linux is where things get more interesting
SSH is the default here - command line control is fantastic and you can do anything you need from here. Pop open terminal and type the command ‘ssh user@IPaddress’, login and ta-da! You are into your Linux machine. 
Once you’ve logged in you can do anything you need from saying hi to updating all your installed packages.
Pretty good so far - but sometimes the CLI is just not enough.There is a stark comparison between controlling your computer like this:
In comparison to using a graphical user interface in your OS of choice! (Having visible folders and icons can be nice sometimes!)
Enter Xrdp for Ubuntu.
Xrdp is an open-source implementation of the RDP protocol to allow you to control a remote system through the user interface. I followed this tutorial and shortly thereafter had remote access to Windows, and Linux from my Mac. 
Which was great! Mission accomplished - right? Almost. My experience with Xrdp was poor. I found sustained performance issues, and would find it would drop connection and frame rate almost constantly. This may have been a combination of my hardware, install instance, or local network but after some troubleshooting there was nothing I could do to get a stable connection.For some people a GUI is absolutely needed - standard things in 2022 like web browsing, emailing, or instant messaging (while possible with command line) are just so much easier with a GUI. My day-to-day is done on my Mac, and for what I’m using my Linux instance for I don’t do any of that. Windows though? RDP all the way.For now while it’s great way to show off I think I’ll stick with ssh. Who really needs a GUI with Linux anyway.