Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop Community Edition

Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop Community Edition or Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop (OVD) is an open source computer operating system designed from the ground up to provide an Ubuntu-based application delivery platform and virtual desktop that supports Linux hosted application and desktop sessions. It also supports Windows remote desktop services.

It is distributed as an OVA appliance

The Community edition of Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop is distributed as an appliance in the OVA (Open Virtualization) file format of approximately 900MB in size, which means that you must import it into a supported virtualization software, such as Oracle VirtualBox, in order to use it.

How to use an OVA file with VirtualBox

Considering the fact that you have a working VirtualBox installation, open it and choose the “Import Appliance” option from the File menu. Browser for the OVA file and open it, click the Next button and then click the Import button to import the appliance into VirtualBox. Don’t forget to click Agree on the license dialog and wait for the appliance to be imported.

How it really works

After the system is fully loaded, you will be dropped to a shell prompt where you are instructed to open a web browser and point it to an IP address. From there, you can login into the Ulteo web-based administration interface using the “admin” username and the “admin” password or start a new virtual desktop session. The desktop environment is traditional, comprised of a single taskbar that includes a simple main menu and essential system functions.

Offers a great selection of open-source applications

The Community Edition of Ulteo OVD offers a great selection of open-source applications, among which we can mention the LibreOffice office suite, Mozilla Thunderbird email and news client, Leafpad text editor, Pidgin multi-protocol instant messenger, Mozilla Firefox web browser, GIMP image editor, Adobe Reader PDF document viewer, as well as the Thunar file manager.

What is new in this release:

• Updated documentation
• Feature add SAML2 support into OVD (SM auth module, WebPortal management, session request protocol modification)
• Feature Add anyuser UserDB module
• Bugfix 941 Some shortcut keys don't work in Excel in Desktop mode
• Bugfix 1041: When session logs are too big, Session Manager to not ask for profile unmount.
• Bugfix 1038: Mimetypes are not propagated in external applications
• Bugfix 1031: Unable to start external application anymore when reconnect a session and try to open a file with external app
• Bugfix 1039: Unable to right click / "open with" a file on Linux Desktop
• Bugfix 1027: Can't input any characters to MS word in Linux Desktop.
• Bugfix 1026: IME sometimes can't be activated on the application
• Bugfix 1030: Session stuck in created or destroying state if there are symlinks in /tmp on the Linux ApS (introduced in bugfix #626)
• Bugfix 1022: Administration console is not available anymore after upgrading to 4.0.1 when SM is not in maintenance mode
• Bugfix 1021: MediaWiki web app integration doesn't work. Error occurs
• Bugfix 1007: Unable to login a portal session just after closed a desktop session because "You already have an active session"
• Bugfix 999: Static Applications: After uploading a new image, clicking on "Modify" displays a error message
• Bugfix 998: HTML5 IME State switch not working in Firefox
• Bugfix 1006: Unable to enter Japanese characters in Windows applications because IME disabled after focused in from Linux apps to Windows app
• Bugfix 1017: Define a specific "OU" within the LDAP integration doesn't work correctly
• Bugfix: session did not start if login contain a '@'