Install Xwindows to Ubuntu Server

[Onno Benschop]

On 01/10/08 18:57, David Dang wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am new to Ubuntu.  I downloaded Unbuntu Desk top and having used it very
> effectively for the last few months. However, I am stuck wit Ubuntu Server
> because it does not have Xwindows. I tried to install it many times but I
> met with failure because it always encounter an IP address that it could not
> be contacted.
>
> Fnally, I used the following site,
> http://www.howtoforge.com/lamp_installation_ubuntu6.06 in orderto install
> the GUI.  The only difference is that my Ubuntu server is Version 8.04
> instead of 6.06.  After completing all installation, I end up with the root
> prompt. I typed reboot.  After some burring activity, starting with the
> Ubuntu loading screen, I ended up with a black screen and a complete
> silence.  I could not get anywhere else.
>
> I have been reading about the questions posed to Ubuntu.  It seems that many
> others have the same trouble as I do.  I wonder why Ubuntu decided to take
> the GUI away from the server instllation in the first place.  It may make
> the whole program leaner.  But for the beginners to Linux, Ubuntu, I am sure
> that efficiency is not their primary concern.   Their concern is to be up
> and go to investigate.  Once proficient they will start to fine tune, to
> make their server leaner, more efficient, to educate themselves to the world
> of Linux, to be independent of the slow GUI, etc...   It seems to me that
> Ubuntu wants to convert user to the world of Linux, but by not making the
> easy availability of the GUI, they are creating a big hurders for the new
> users to jump.  It seems that they efeat their own purpose.
>
> Besides, there is another thing that I find annoying in using Help
> communications from Ubuntu or SLUG.  Most people who need to use all those
> Help files are beginners.  Yet I find communicators using code names like
> Heron, Dapper, etc...  as if everyone should know it.  They communicate to
> each other and dabble in those code names as if they are in an exquisite
> group and they want to keep it that way.  I think, in most cases, a beginner
> knows only the name of the version that he is downloading and using.   It is
> very annoying for me to search for a word that I thought that I had to know
> in my process of learning Ubuntu,only to find out after lengthy waste of
> time that that word only refers to an older version of Ubuntu.   In order to
> promote Linux, Ubuntu, not only it has to be a great program, which I find
> it is, so far, but it has to be made easy to learn for beginners, which I
> find it is not.  One of the way I think Ubuntu can do is advice
> communicators to avoid using code name while referring to Version (or if you
> love the code names so much, at least add a Version name to it in closed
> brackets.   This will save many people many hours to search for the code
> names.
>
> I hope that you treat the above comments as constuctive suggestion.
>
> Regards,
>
> David Dang.
>
>   
While I understand what you're saying about having a GUI, I'm not at all
sure what you're describing with "an IP address that could not be
contacted".

The Ubuntu Desktop is a user environment that runs Linux, has a GUI and
is capable of running all the server applications. If you are not
concerned with the specifics that the ubuntu-server environment brings -
mostly catering toward remote administration, lean deployment and
prioritising of processes - which is what you appear to be writing.

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from installing a Ubuntu
Desktop machine and then installing specific server tasks, or services
after the installation has completed.

As for the IP address issue, if there is a problem then it would be
helpful if you provided a bug report.

Finally, I would point out that a server is in my opinion not a good
place to learn about Linux as a first port of call. I'm not saying that
you don't need the facilities that a server offers - I cannot make that
statement with the information you've supplied - but there is a lot more
to installing a server than booting a server CD and choosing a task from
the installer.

So, I would encourage you to download a Ubuntu LiveCD, install it, use
it, then add services to it to make your workstation into a "server"
without trying to interpret instructions that are applicable to an
installation that was released in June of 2006 and attempt to use them
on a release made in April 2008. Many bugs will have been fixed,
applications renamed or removed, configuration file formats changed - to
name a few issues.


Kind regards,

-- 
Onno Benschop

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