Does installing desktop on Ubuntu Server turn it into the desktop? version?
Brian
sdtc at sonicboom.org
Sun Nov 21 19:03:44 UTC 2021
I have a machine which I installed as an LTS server. I then added
gnome-session, gnome-terminal, and firefox and that gave me the gui I
occasionally need.
Brian
On 11/21/2021 11:00 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
> There really isn't anything like a "server" or "desktop" version of Linux.
> All that makes a server distro is just that just does not include the GUI
> packages. It is possible to install some or all of the GUI infrastructure
> packages on a server distro, which makes it possible to run GUI applications,
> either on a local screen or via something like ssh X11 tunneling on a "remote"
> screen. It is *also* possible to install server deamon packages on a desktop
> system and run these in background, turning your desktop (or laptop even) as a
> "server".
>
> Some Linux distros don't provide separate "Server" and "Desktop" installer
> ISOs (CentOS is one such distro). This allows one to install a "desktop" using
> some "server" features, like RAID and server deamons, along with a desktop
> environment (nice for those of us who run home LANs and don't want the extra
> costs of a separate server box for necessary LAN services (DHCP, DNS, AMANDA,
> CUPS, etc.). When I installed CentOS on my "desktop" machine (way back when) I
> set up some things typially only available with Ubuntu Server (software RAID
> and LVM), so when I migrated from CentOS 6 to Ubuntu 18.04, I needed to
> install Ubuntu Server 16.04 and then upgrade (Ubuntu Desktop 18.04's installer
> was unable to cope with my RAID setup and wanted to wipe my whole disk clean
> -- not what I wanted and Ubuntu Server 18.04's installer was (is?) broken and
> became confused by my RAID arrays (I have two)).
>
> At Sun, 21 Nov 2021 19:02:29 +0100 bo.berglund at gmail.com, "Ubuntu user technical support,? not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
>> I would like to know what is expected to happen when you have an Ubuntu Server
>> 20.04.3 and install a desktop environment into it.
>>
>> I have been experimenting in a virtual machine environment for a number of hours
>> now and I do not understand some of what I have seen.
>>
>> I used the snapshot facility of VMWare Workstation to be able to return to the
>> same state after doing modifications.
>>
>> First I installed Ubuntu Server 20.04.3 LTS from the downloaded server ISO into
>> a new virtual machine where I had configured a 40 GB virtual drive.
>>
>> Once all of that was done I wound up with this base state (snapshot BASE):
>> (edited out small /dev/&loop and tempfs stuff)
>>
>> $ df -h
>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
>> tmpfs 391M 1.6M 390M 1% /run
>> /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 20G 6.3G 13G 34% /
>> tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
>> /dev/sda2 976M 107M 803M 12% /boot
>>
>>
>> Then I installed KDE using
>> sudo apt install kde-standard
>>
>> After it was all done and I had logged in I got this (snapshot KDE):
>>
>> $ df -h
>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
>> tmpfs 391M 1.6M 390M 1% /run
>> /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 20G 8.3G 11G 45% /
>> tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
>> /dev/sda2 976M 107M 803M 12% /boot
>>
>> And after installing MATE using:
>> sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop
>>
>> I got this (snapshot MATE):
>>
>> $ df -h
>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
>> tmpfs 391M 1.8M 390M 1% /run
>> /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 20G 9.4G 9.3G 51% /
>> tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
>> /dev/sda2 976M 112M 798M 13% /boot
>>
>> And lastly I also tried the Cinnamon desktop with this command:
>> sudo apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment
>>
>> I now got this (snapshot Cinnamon):
>>
>> ~$ df -h
>> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
>> udev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev
>> tmpfs 391M 1.7M 390M 1% /run
>> /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 20G 9.8G 8.9G 53% /
>> tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
>> /dev/sda2 976M 107M 803M 12% /boot
>>
>> To summarize the disk usage:
>>
>> Base server 6.3 GB
>> KDE 8.3 GB
>> MATE 9.3 GB
>> Cinnamon 9.8 GB
>>
>> So the add-on disk usage turned out to be 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 GB respectively and
>> all except KDE sported Office, Video, Audio, Games and Graphics applications....
>>
>> KDE looked really strange too, nothing I would like to use.
>>
>> So now I wonder if I install any of Mate or Cinnamon on the real server will it
>> then have been transformed into the desktop version one gets if installing from
>> the desktop ISO?
>> I can use either of them since they look like they are sensibly designed
>> desktops.
>>
>> Is there any reason to select either over the other?
>>
>> Another question after inspecting my disk from the Cinnamon desktop using
>> Gparted (had to be installed first):
>> In GParted I see only 3 partitions taking up all 40GB of disk space:
>>
>> /dev/sda1 grub.core.img 1.00 MiB
>> /dev/sda2 ext4 /boot 1.00 GiB
>> /dev/sda3 lvm2 pv ubuntu-vg 39.00 GiB
>>
>> I have a hard time figuring out the mapping between what df -h shows and what
>> GParted shows...
>> Why is the partition holding / shown at different sizes in these views?
>> Only about half of what is there seems to be available...
>>
>> The /etc/fstab file looks like this:
>>
>> /dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-LVM-Z3uK3zYox...3onmrLk0K6QDoiX / ext4 defaults 0 1
>> # /boot was on /dev/sda2 during curtin installation
>> /dev/disk/by-uuid/06b664e5-ddb6-4eff-94d2-a27...cea /boot ext4 defaults 0 1
>> /swap.img none swap sw 0 0
>>
>>
>>
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