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
> 
> 
> 

-- 
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