Does installing desktop on Ubuntu Server turn it into the desktop? version?
Robert Heller
heller at deepsoft.com
Sun Nov 21 19:00:17 UTC 2021
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
>
>
>
--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
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