VNC is a popular choice when it comes to remote desktop access and control, but it's not the only fish in the sea. In fact, if you want to establish a connection to a remote machine instantly and with a minimum of fuss, DeskView is the perfect tool for the job. The only requirement is that a Java Runtime Environment (e.g., OpenJDK) is installed on both the server and client machines. DeskView works through HTTP proxies, and the connection between the client and server is encrypted using the DES encryption. More importantly, the software requires no installation and it can run practically on any platform, so you can control your Linux machine at home from a Windows box.

To run DeskView on the server (i.e., the remote machine you want to control), grab the DeskViewServer.jar applet from the project's website and launch the applet using the java -jar DeskViewServer.jar command in the terminal. Specify the desired connection password, hit the Connect button, and tweak the available settings. To connect to the server, launch the DeskViewClient.jar applet using the java -jar DeskViewClient.jar command, then enter the password and connection number generated by the server applet to establish a connection to the server. Besides the ability to view and control a remote desktop, DeskView has a couple of other useful features: using the file and clipboard transfer capabilities, you can swap files and the clipboard contents between the client and the server, while the chat tool lets you exchange messages with a user at the other end.

All in all, DeskView provides a hassle-free way to control remote machines and offers a couple of handy features to boot.