r/Remmina

This is a known problem in Remmina. There is written by Remmina developers explaining that the fractional scaling in GTK is broken.

I'm running Kubuntu 26.04 with KDE Plasma 6.6.6 and Wayland, on a laptop with 125% scaling;
in Display Configuration - System Settings: Legacy applications (X11) is set to: Apply scaling themselves. I intentionally dropped Gnome due to scaling issues.

In this configuration RDP is still blurry.

First test:
Disable the system wide scaling. (Scale = 100%)
Restart Remmina (remember the tray icon).
That solves the blurry RDP session. It confirms the theory, but doesn't solve the problem.
In my case system-wide fractional scaling is a must, so I go back to Scale = 125%.

Second test:
AI suggested to put two environment variables in the system menu shortcut so it always opens without scaling:

GDK_SCALE=1 GDK_DPI_SCALE=1

You can do it in KDE Menu Editor by putting them in the dedicated 'Environment variables' field.

Restarted Remmina, but that did nothing. It seems that Remmina launched in Wayland ignores these env variables.

Third test:
A third environment variable was added:

GDK_BACKEND=x11

Which forces Remmina to launch through XWayland.
That did the trick! Even without previous two variables, Remmina launched without interface scaling and the RDP session was crisp.
Unfortunately in this mode the remote Windows desktop will probably have wrong scaling. That can be fixed in Remmina Preferences > RDP > Remote scale factor:

Desktop scale factor: 125%
Device scale factor: 100%

It works because Remmina supports server-side scaling.
This isn't a universal solution, as with very high DPI displays your Remmina interface might be to small. Still, once you start the RDP session you rarely use the Remmina interface.

From my perspective, Remmina developers will probably add an option to ignore the GTK / Wayland scaling once it's available in GTK5?

TL;DR Launching Remmina with GDK_BACKEND=x11 env variable might solve your blurry RDP issues. Just add in Preferences: Desktop scale factor: e.g. 125%, Device scale factor: 100%.

Setup: Fedora 44 KDE Plasma (Wayland), Remmina 1.4.41, FreeRDP 3.31.1, Jabra USB headset. Connecting to a work Windows PC through an RD Gateway.

Problem: my mic sounds choppy/robotic on the remote side. Remote audio playback is fine. The same headset and network worked perfectly with mstsc on Windows.

What I've checked:

- Gateway has UDP enabled: openssl s_client -dtls1_2 -connect <gateway>:3391 completes a DTLS handshake

- Remmina only opens TCP to the gateway (checked with ss), even with "Enable multitransport protocol (UDP)" ticked

- Plain xfreerdp (/gateway:type:auto, /microphone:sys:pulse) behaves the same: single TCP/WebSocket connection, still robotic

- Mic options rate:16000,channel:1 and ADPCM (format:17) are ignored; the server always gets 44.1 kHz stereo PCM

- Ruled out: Wi-Fi power save (off), network (same on home Wi-Fi and phone hotspot, 0% loss), headset (local recording is clean), PipeWire quantum (forcing 512 made no difference)

Questions:

1. Is RDP UDP through an RD Gateway supported in any Remmina/FreeRDP version, or planned?

2. Any way to make mic audio more tolerant over TCP (bigger buffer, compressed format)?

3. Anyone found a Linux setup that gives clean mic audio through an RD Gateway? Thanks!

Under X, when i was in Remmina on my desktop I could connect to my laptop and use both my desktop monitors (much like I can if I use the dock at work). In Wayland I seem to have lost this ability.

As i understand it, this is a limitation of the wayland server. But is Remmina working on a solution? Is it even possible?

Or perhaps I'm just being dumb and haven't set the correct thing in my remmina config - any advice appreciated.

Desktop (kubuntu 26.04 LTS) RDPing to Laptop (win11). Remmina 1.4.40

Thanks in advance.