Remote Desktop on Android

The Informatics Remote Desktop gives you a graphical login on DICE, displaying on another computer.

This page explains how to access the Remote Desktop service from an Android device. This involves installing an app, then configuring it, then connecting to the service. Installing and configuring the app only has to be done once.

Get on the network

First, your device will need to join the University's network. On campus, connect to eduroam wifi. Anywhere else, connect to the University VPN.

RDP on Linux

The Informatics Remote Desktop gives you a graphical login on DICE, displaying on another computer - a Linux computer, in this case.

You will need to use the University VPN. If you don't, you won't get access to the Remote Desktop service - unless your computer is already on the University of Edinburgh network (for example in an office or a computing lab).

Remote Desktop Service

With the Informatics Remote Desktop service, you can get a graphical login to DICE Linux. You can use it from anywhere, on any device which has RDP client software.
You connect to a DICE remote desktop server. If you're a staff member or research postgrad with your own DICE desktop computer, you can connect to that instead.

If you just need a text-only login, use ssh instead.

Remote Desktop on a Mac

The Informatics Remote Desktop gives you a DICE graphical login, displaying on your computer.

This page explains how to use Remote Desktop on a Mac.

It tells you how to install the client, then configure it, then connect to DICE. Installing and configuring the client only have to be done once.

You will need to use the University VPN. If you don't, you won't get access to the Remote Desktop service - unless your computer is already on the University of Edinburgh network (for example in an office or a computing lab).

Screen Lock in GNOME

GNOME is one of the window environments available on DICE. (There are others - see Window managers.)

To lock the screen in GNOME, either select the lock icon which is found at the right-end of the bar at the top of the screen:

Or press the left Super key (the key which usually has a Microsoft Windows logo, typically between Ctrl and Alt), then type lock, then select the DICE Screen Lock icon which appears.

Setting a default application on DICE

On DICE some types of files - for instance PDF documents - have a default application. This is the application that will be used when you click on the icon for a file or open a file that your web browser cannot view directly.

If you don't like the default, you can change it. This page explains how to do that.

Step 1: Find out the MIME type

Each file has a "MIME type". To find out what it is, start a terminal window and type mimetype and the name of the file. For example:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Sometimes a software guide will tell you to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to a certain value.

This is occasionally required by certain pieces of software, for example to load a library which cannot be provided automatically on DICE. However setting this globally - for example using bash's export command - is likely to break things in unpredictable ways.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a bash environment variable.

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