Pi 3 to a Remote Desktop Client

Device: Raspberry Pi 3, with wired Keyboard, wired Mouse, wired Ethernet (Internet).

1. Install Raspberry Pi OS

I used my linux (Ubuntu Studio) to flash the sd card. I installed via apt a program called rpi-imager, ran rpi-imager, Selected the Pi Device: Raspberry Pi 3, Selected the Operating System (to be installed): Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit), and Selected a 32GB sd Card. I edited some options, one is to add a user right away. Once that was completed I booted the pi from the newly created sd card and ran the list of commands:

2. setup Pi

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install xinit remmina

sudo apt install xinit

Then to make sure everything is operating correctly run:

xinit remmina

If everything seemed to load, and your looking at just a remmina window, then it worked. Click the plus to add your Remote Desktop Server and attempt to connect. Once it is working and you can connect successfully, then lets proceed.

3. Create User and permissions

sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash thinclient

sudo usermod -a -G video,tty,input,render,audio thinclient

(added) sudo chmod g+rw /dev/tty0 /dev/tty1

Make sure this is set correctly, however, more on it in a bit.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver=xorg-legacy

select Anybody or Console Users Only – hit enter

4. setup users bashrc file

sudo nano /home/thinclient/.bashrc

Then scroll to the bottom and enter these lines:

sleep 2
xinit /usr/bin/remmina --enable-fullscreen  -- vt1
sleep 2 
exit

My file:

sleep 2
xinit /usr/bin/remmina --enable-fullscreen  -- vt1
sleep 2 
exit

Ctrl + X to save and exit the file.

5. Enable Console Auto-Login

sudo raspi-config

Select System Options > Boot / Auto Login
Select Console Autologin

Exit the utility and reboot the pi

sudo reboot now

5.1 Enable Auto-Login with user, thinclient

raspi-config defaults to auto-login in your original user account, so we must change that.

sudo nano /ect/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/autologin.conf

then we look for the line starting with ExecStart=

ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty –autologin (original user) –noclear %I $TERM

Change that line to read:

ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin thinclient --noclear %I $TERM

Save and Close that file as before.

Now you should be able to reboot your pi and have it automatically load remmina, and now you basically have a functioning thin client.