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Platform support

The SSH client side is terminal data, so Linux, macOS, Windows OpenSSH, PuTTY, mobile SSH apps, and other interactive clients can display SSHDESK. Sharpness is determined by the terminal emulator, not the operating system.

The one-line bootstrap supports Linux, macOS, and Windows. That means the application, native backend, and OpenSSH configuration can be installed on each OS; the host limitations below still apply after installation.

Linux host

Linux is the primary supported host platform.

X11

X11Capture detects the desktop size and tries these implementations in order:

  1. a continuously drained FFmpeg/XCB process scaled to the current renderer;
  2. MIT-SHM current-frame capture, optionally scaled with OpenCV;
  3. Pillow/XCB current-frame capture.

X11Input injects bounded XTest keyboard and mouse events and releases held state during cleanup. This path is desktop-environment and distribution neutral as long as the target is an accessible X11 session.

Wayland

Wayland deliberately prevents generic applications from reading or controlling other clients. SSHDESK uses tools already designed for the active compositor:

  • wlroots: grim -c capture;
  • GNOME: one persistent Mutter ScreenCast/PipeWire stream, scaled by GStreamer;
  • KDE Plasma: spectacle capture;
  • GNOME input: the linked Mutter RemoteDesktop session;
  • other Wayland input: ydotool connected to ydotoold through /dev/uinput.

The graphical user's WAYLAND_DISPLAY, XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, desktop, and D-Bus environment must reach the forced command. The installer records these when it is run from that graphical session. On GNOME it installs PyGObject, GStreamer, and the PipeWire plugin. Mutter provides capture and input inside the graphical user's existing D-Bus session, so no privileged helper or screenshot extension is used. The stream is opened once, compositor frames are drained continuously, and resizing restarts only the local scaling pipeline.

For KDE and wlroots, the installer creates sshdesk-ydotoold.service. That helper alone opens /dev/uinput; its Unix socket is mode 0600 and owned by the desktop user. SSHDESK itself stays unprivileged. KDE's command-based capture is functional but slower than GNOME PipeWire, X11, or grim. Compositors that provide none of the listed capture interfaces need a backend adapter.

macOS host

NativeCapture uses Pillow's CoreGraphics path and MacOSInput uses Quartz. Grant Screen Recording and Accessibility permission to the installed Python binary. A manually launched server in the logged-in Aqua session is supported; OpenSSH daemon access depends on macOS TCC/session policy.

Windows host

NativeCapture uses Pillow ImageGrab across virtual screens and WindowsInput uses SendInput. The terminal lifecycle enables and restores Windows virtual-terminal console modes. The server must execute in the logged-in interactive desktop. Windows OpenSSH normally runs as a service in Session 0, which can isolate it from that desktop, so forced-command hosting is currently experimental.