Ubuntu, the rising star of desktop Linux distributions, has a lesser known counterpart for servers. There are several advantages of going for Ubuntu Server but the lack of a GUI is a little off putting for some. Coming from the Windows world of point, click and Ctrl+Alt+Del it took me a few minutes to get used to the completely command driven Ubuntu server. Finally I gave up trying to do everything with commands and looked for a GUI replacement to do things on the server.

GUI Options

The official Ubuntu server documentation gives several different options for installing a graphical interface on Ubuntu. Openbox, Fluxbox, Webmin seem reasonable as a light weight interfaces to manage the server. Each has its own benefits and disadvantages. Since I was already much familiar with the Ubuntu Desktop environment

Ubuntu Desktop GUI on Server

To install the Ubuntu desktop Gnome environment on the server follow these steps.

1. First of all make sure you have an IP address on the server. Run ifconfig and check for a valid IP address (like 192.168.0.101), subnet mask (like 255.255.255.0), gateway (like 192.168.0.1) and DNS server (like 192.168.0.1). When all these fields are valid try to ping google.com. The output should show the name google.com being resolved to an IP address and then certain outputs telling if it succeeded or not. If any part of this is not working consult Ubuntu server networking configuration docs and troubleshoot.
2. The next step is to update aptitude. Most likely right after install the aptitude component would not be up to date. To do this run sudo aptitude update and wait for it to completely finish.
3. The next step of the process is to actually install the Gnome environment. This step is the most time consuming and give yourself an hour for it to run. The easiest way is to run sudo aptitude install ubuntu-desktop and wait.
4. When the install finishes reboot the system using sudo reboot The server should load the GUI on the reboot. If not then run sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start to bring up the Gnome interface.

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