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Why not skip a dedicated display and just remote login instead?

Raspberry Pi is now compatible with Teamviewer!

https://pages.teamviewer.com/p...

Yes, you could go through the trouble of setting up VPN, etc. and it would work. But VPN connections can be tricky if you don't know what you are doing.

Personally, I've been using Teamviewer (Free for private use) for remote control. They have Windows, MAC, UNIX, and mobile clients. You do have to know the password on the client that you are connecting to and I believe that you can set it to a permanent one, but I've never needed to. I just get my Dad to read the 4 or 5 digit random number back to me. I believe that you can set it up to be always-on if you buy a license.

https://www.teamviewer.com/en/...

As for monitoring your kid's Internet access, it isn't going to work. He'll quickly find out that Grandpa's computer has access to everything... (grin)

The easiest thing to do is install a monitoring program on his computer and buy a 802.11ac router for home and a router for grandpa that has built-in Parental Controls. You could then check the program logs on your kid's computer and the logs on the router.

Unless you really have your heart set on learning how to configure VPNs and understand IP networking, it's just not worth it for Remote Control and Parental Monitoring.

However, if you also plan to use the link for backups between their home and yours then it might make sense as backup services like Carbonite can be costly. In that case, the Meraki solution proposed by a previous commenter would be a good place to start.

Customers of products regardless if they are "free" (nothing is free, your mother should of told you that) or not should let companies know when they have made poor choices and quit being Lemmings! The Internet and cellphones have given the power/control and surveillance hungry zealots a lot but that cuts BOTH ways when it comes to information. If you don't like what they are doing send them a "love" letter, cancel your account, write them a few "nice" reviews, install a competing product ( I am all for TeamViewer at https://www.teamviewer.com/ for ease of use and cross platform support with features for novices to geeks and nerds) or roll your own. If you bought their app give it one star and write a review why they get 1 star. I understand they need to make a profit that said "Oops you have a week to purchase or find someone else" is just bad PR period. At least SugarSync gave a little more warning when they got rid of "free" than LogMeIn has. You can stand up for yourself and others and not be a jerk.

If it was so easy for someone else to offer an alternative service, there would be dozens of them

There are dozens of them. By no means a complete list:

GotoMeeting

Webex

Yuugu

TeamViewer

Mikogo

CrossLoop

This scam works regardless of OS.

Teamviewer (one of the software packages they'll talk you into downloading) is completely legitimate and useful software and is truly cross platform . Not just "maybe it works on Linux" but it works on Linux flawlessly.

Here, go get it and play around.

http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux.aspx

You can't fix layer 8 except through education about best practices, and that's only if the person you're teaching is willing to actually listen - a rarity.

--
BMO

Let me make a suggestion for your tech support needs: http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx

It has saved me tons of frustration.

Thanks! Not much help when I'm trying to troubleshoot their network connection, however...which, unfortunately, seems to constantly flake out on them.

Let me make a suggestion for your tech support needs: http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx

It has saved me tons of frustration.

Ask yourself whether you need a server, or you simply need to access your home computer.

If you just need to access your home computer to see files/etc., then a service like LogMeIn or TeamViewer would probably work for you. They work through NAT and don't require a publicly routable IP address to access specific equipment.

I'm 2,500 miles and two time zones away, so I can't exactly troubleshoot things from here

Assuming the problem that needs to be troubleshot isn't network related

In no particular order of preference
TeamViewer
LogMeIn
Techinline Remote Desktop
CrossLoop (I hadn't heard of this one before searching just now but it looks interesting)
Radmin
RemotePC
There are a lot of remote support options. Some good ones are even free.

My personal suggestion is Splashtop. It isn't a remote support tool but it has client's for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and BB 10/PlayBook OS2 so you could log into your mother's PC from your tablet and fix what needs fixing. It's also a one time cost opposed to a subscription.

At some point your mother will need to do something the tablet cannot do. You can still get an inexpensive tablet for her.

That's legitimate software, as is Teamviewer, a related remote access and desktop sharing tool.

http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx

Remote tools like this are used every day by remote sysadmins. The scam was to get you to install it yourself so they could connect from their end, take your banking information, and clean out your accounts. It looks like the reason why they picked Amyy was because the license fee for "unlimited simultaneous connections" is relatively cheap ($99 for top tier) compared to Teamviewer's rather expensive license for unlimited connections - $1499.

And then through the remote tool, they would make your machine unbootable when everything was done. There have been people who have let these guys run loose in a VM to find nothing, only to watch them start disabling services and delete system files.

Teamviewer, Amyy, other remote access/desktop sharing tools are third parties to all of this and aren't part of the scam.

--
BMO

Not too sure if you have hear of teamviewer ?

http://www.teamviewer.com/

There are clients for Windows / Linux and Mac ...

You might be interested in this then:

http://www.teamviewer.com/images/pdf/TeamViewer_SecurityStatement.pdf

Should answer some of your questions on security.

I see most people here are recommending VNC. VNC and its brethren work, but can be very slow. A propriety alternative is Team Viewer. It is free as in beer and like VNC runs on all platforms under the sun (including Android and iOS). It is unlike VNC in that it is rock solid (I've never seen it hang), always quick enough to useable and requires no special setup to pierce NAT and firewalls.

I hope that one day open source figures our what the magic sauce is in Team View is and replicates it in VNC. Until that day arrives when I need to get shit down, I just use TeamView.

" and all the smartphone would do is provide some type of connection to that system. Possibly ssh, possibly web-based, "

I just use TeamViewer on my phone.

http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/mobile.aspx

I'm sure that, if they can keep it secure, a free, easy to install, multi-platform remote desktop solution will be attractive to many on /.

    Yes, because none of those exist yet.

On a Windows machine I can expect my relatives to install the software if I sent them the link to the download page. You'd think that installing simple stable software would be possible before you can talk about Linux usability?

You are actually saying that the windows system of installing apps is better than linux. The windows system(i mean the lack of one) is one of the main reasons Windows users get infected in the first place. Downloading software from unknown sources from the internet. All Linux distros have a central repository of trusted software with 2 or 3 clicks to install software.

I can't count the number of times I gave up on software install in Linux. Either it has to be compiled or it has a 100-item long list of dependencies

This is a lie, pure and simple, unless you are talking about LFS, all linux distros have a package-manager that resolve dependencies. There are the rare cases when you can't find a certain package on the package-manager and you have to install it manually. In this cases it's the software provider obligation to make it simple for your distro. All commercial software for linux have a simple way to install their app in the most popular distros.
Look at http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/index.aspx for example. It has rpm's and debs. The install is simple and with one click in most systems.

I don't know where to start to list the things that just don't work in Linux. I really don't. I can typically resolve any problem that anyone in my Windows

That's because you are not a very bright person. OR/AND you are on the wrong line of business.You are possibly in a stage that can't learn anything different, so you reject everything that is different even if it's better.
GP is totally right. For a person who never used a computer, it find it easier to learn Linux desktop(of today, not 10 years ago) than windows. I find this true in my experiences because for all my relatives that I do free support.They all have Linux installed. Believe it or not the bothering ratio dropped enormously once I installed Linux, once they find out they could install apps with 1 or 2 clicks. I also recently migrated a small company to Linux(all desktops and servers) and there aren't any major adaptation problems.

http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx

Thankfully in recent years stuff like TeamViewer has come along. I install it on all of my customers computers as a matter of course nowadays.

That would work, but for 90% of these problems couldn't they invest in something like TeamViewer and just do it themselves?

The only real problems then would be if the computer has to be physically shut off, and then they can send a guy down or do the over-the-phone spiel.

* Remote desktop and VPN are your best friends. Learn them, live them, love them.

I'd like to point out Teamviewer for quick, minimal-setup user assistance. It's come in handy a couple times for me and work acceptably even halfway around the world. I believe they charge for corporate users.

There are quite a few options nowadays to meet this sort of need. Fog Creek Copilot is Joel Spolsky's entry into this space.

There is teamviewer which is a similar option as well, and free for non commercial use.

Teamviewer is free for personal use. Easy to install and use. http://www.teamviewer.com/

Agree, if you copy the exe out of the install dir, you don't even need to install it or have admin privileges. And since it uses teamviewer servers to manage you connection you don't need to setup port forwarding.

The best tool to help people with no computer knowledge.

The security is also quite strong you need both ID number and a password to connect and as soon as you close the windows the connection stops.

Okay seems like everyone and their brother has a different idea and since this interests me I tried to roll up as many of the interesting looking ones as possible into one posting :-) Did I miss any?

http://www.teamviewer.com/

https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

http://www.copilot.com/

http://skype.com/

http://www.uvnc.com/addons/singleclick.html (reverse VNC)

http://www.crossloop.com/

http://www.mikogo.com/en/

http://showmypc.com/

https://www.ntrconnect.com/

http://www.zolved.com/remote_control

http://www.wippien.com/ (VPN)

http://code.google.com/p/gitso/ (reverse VNC)

I have to agree with the post. I have been using free version of TeamViewer with my mom, dad, sister and niece. It works like a charm every time. And, with their Quick Support link, it makes it super easy for people who are not very computer savvy to get started -- http://www.teamviewer.com/download/TeamViewerQS.exe. The other great thing I like about it is that I never have to install it, I run the installer and choose the "run" option, and it leaves no footprint. Overall, great app!

well for Teamviewer is kick ass. free fopr personal use and does all sorts of other things you mighty like such as VPN.

have a looksee, it really is quite nice and i have found there is much less lag on it as compered to other remote control apps

If you can use VNC, go for it.
If that won't work, but you're both using Windows or OS X, try http://www.teamviewer.com/
Free for non-commercial use.

You know this just sounds like it's a rip-off of teamviewer

Teamviewer 3 http://www.teamviewer.com/ is also a very good tool for remote administration (for parents, grandparents, etc). It is very simple. It is free for personal use. Basically when your parents launch teamviewer, you connect to their servers (not sure which port, but I was able to do it from work therefore it was most likely 80 cause they have every port known to man blocked here), and they are given a 10 digit number and a 4 digit pin. Then, you yourself launch Team Viewer and you type in the 10 digit number and the 4 digit pin and voila, you see their desktop. Very easy because you do not have to setup any special port forwarding (if parents have firewall). I've used it several times and it is very slick.

NTRconnect works on Linux, and the LogMeIn client will work on Linux with the right plugin:

http://community.logmein.com/logmein/board/message?board.id=29&message.id=21

TeamViewer is especially handy for granny tech support, but unfortunately it's for Windows and Mac OS only.

http://www.teamviewer.com/

I'd just use VNC, works on anything :)

Remote desktop. When troubleshooting, I can't just ask the person I'm helping to install VNC, because then I'd have to explain to them how open the port.

You do know that RealVNC will connect out to you right?

also TeamViewer is infinitely useful

You might also check out Teamviewer It also works great under Wine.

Lately I have been using TeamViewer for Windows remote support. It is a lot easier for end users to configure. It even has a standalone executable and can start as a service. Sometimes I have to work on machines remotely from Vista, so it's a no-brainer. It is faster than the online linux desktop offered by Ulteo, but that's not saying much - as always, VNC-type things are slow as hell.