How to Install Gnome and xRDP on RHEL 8 (CentOS 8/Alma Linux/Rocky Linux)

You can install Gnome Desktop + xdrp on a remote server (VPS/cloud or dedicated) and use it as a remote desktop for browsing or running applications. This instruction works for any RHEL 8 based distributions like CentOS 8, Alma Linux 8, Rocky Linux 8, and Oracle Linux 8.

Install Gnome Desktop with

dnf groupinstall -y --nobest Workstation

After installing, reboot the server

reboot

xrdp package is provided by epel repository, so let’s enable it with

dnf install -y epel-release

install xrdp

dnf install -y xrdp xrdp-selinux xorgxrdp

Enable and start xrdp

systemctl enable xrdp
systemctl start xrdp

Open port 3389 in the firewall

firewall-cmd --add-port=3389/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

Create a user and set a password for the user. This user will be used to login to remote desktop

useradd -m --shell /bin/bash serverok
usermod -aG wheel serverok
passwd serverok

Now you should be able to login to remote desktop using RDP.

Once logged in, you may need to disable desktop animations to avoid lag by running the following command in the terminal.

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface enable-animations false