desktop vs. server?

[Rashkae]

Joshua Solomin wrote:
> I'm about to try converting a spare computer of mine to Ubuntu (my
> first real foray into administering my own Linux system).  I'd love to
> get a chance to play with a good desktop GUI, to see if it would work
> well enough for my purposes to fully convert over to Linux from
> Windows.  However, I also know that I'll definitely want to use it as
> a Samba file server, and possibly also web server/application
> server/mysql.  So I'm waffling between installing desktop vs.
> installing server.  Any advice -- would it be easier to enable
> desktop-style features on a server install, or to add the server
> utilities I need onto a desktop install?
> 
> thanks much,
> Joshua
> 

Install Desktop, that way you have gui to work with as you are learning.
Then it's simply a matter of adding a few server packages as you go.
(And you'll probably also want to remove network manager, instead
configuring the network devices with a permanent configuration that
stars up with the pc without being logged in.)