Installing Ubuntu Server

[envy me]

Going to be installing this on a spare workstation to play around with LAMP.

I have read a bit about server/desktop versions and I have determined that with a server installation there is no desktop installed.

Does this mean that after installation is complete and you boot up you will be taken directly to a command prompt?

If so, is it possible to install Beryl or any other type of desktop from the command line?


And finally.

I have used Suse 9.0 a while back and there was an option for restarting in normal mode or in command line mode.

If I have a desktop installed and restart in command line mode, is there a way of loading up the desktop from the command line, or must I restart for it to load?


Thanks!

 

[drag]

Ubuntu server would just be a stripped down version of Ubuntu with server stuff installed instead of the desktop installed.

But there is no problem with having a desktop with server stuff or a server with desktop. They are both the same exact operating systems, just with different default configurations. A user can easily customize it to do anything they want.


The only difficult thing is knowing which packages to install. 'Beryl' is just Gnome desktop with the Beryl window manager replacing the gnome metacity window manager default. So you would have to install gnome. Then you would have to install X Windows and some other stuff to get it to work.


If you want to have a Ubuntu machine to play around with with a desktop it'll probably be easier to install Ubuntu desktop and then install the apache/mysql/php stuff later.


But if you want a server to play with, that is more like a real world configuration, then leave all the desktop stuff off of it. Typically you'll use SSH to control servers remotely through the command line. There are a number of nice SSH clients aviable for Windows, most people use Putty.exe

Then there are a few web-based configuration stuff aviable for Linux servers, such as Webmin. This can make administrating stuff a bit easier when they work.


If your using a Linux desktop then you can install GUI applications on the server, then run them using OpenSSH's X-over-ssh feature. This way you can have GUI access to the server, but not have a full desktop installed and running. The graphical output will tunnel over ssh and open up in a window on your desktop and you can interact with it like any local application, but it will run on the server. Sort of like remote desktop or vnc, but better.



Personally I never install a desktop on a server. After the server is setup then I'll remove the keyboard and monitor and only connect to it over the network. (that's because I am cheap and will use the monitor and keyboard for something else)

 

[Emission]

Just check out the Ubuntu forums. They can answer any and every question you have about setting things up.

 

[TheVrolok]

Check out http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_ubuntu704

Ubuntu server set up, pretty straight forward, nice for beginners who want to play around.