Install AnyDesk on Arch Linux the easy way

13, September, 2023 286 words 2 minutes

Contents

Introduction

TL;DR Install AnyDesk from AUR with YAY on Arch Linux

On my mom’s old Laptop, I replaced the old MX Linux OS with Arch Linux with Gnome GUI.

For remote support, I got good experience with AnyDesk. It got a free license version with unlimited working time (not like TeamViewer, where you get kicked out with the free version after any time).

First we got to install, YAY (Yet another Yogurt). If you already got it set up, you can skip this step.

Why to use YAY?

There are a few ways to get AnyDesk working on Arch Linux.
First I liked to use Flatpak because of easier switching distribution in the future, but unfortunately the package got marked as “end-of-life” because of lack of maintainers.
Then you can install the package manually, but it’s hard to keep it up to date.
So I ended using AUR (Archlinux User Repository) because there provided the current version of AnyDesk, and it’s easy to keep the package up to date in the future.

Install YAY

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sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel
# Run as non-root user
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay
makepkg -si

Install and setup AnyDesk

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# Run as non-root user
yay -S anydesk-bin

# If wayland is used
sudo vim /etc/gdm/custom.conf
[daemon]
WaylandEnable = false

# Enable auto login
AutomaticLoginEnable = true
AutomaticLogin = $username

sudo systemctl enable anydesk
sudo reboot

I hope this short note could help you.

References

YAY repository, github.com.
YAY AUR Package Details, aur.archlinux.org.
3 Tested Ways to Fix AnyDesk Display Server Not Supported, anyviewer.com.
AnyDesk website, anydesk.com.
Flathub AnyDesk Flatpak, github.com.