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Troubleshooting Ubuntu Server
Reading the last comment on the weblog about the X server not starting by default on Ubuntu server made me want to have a go at Ubuntu server. So I got down to work. To my dismay I noticed that I had deleted the server iso in order to make some space on my hard disk. "Hakuna Matata" (Since I am using a african distro, I am going speaking african too). I went to the download site on Ubuntu's website and found out that Ubuntu has released a newer version of the server, version 6.10 code named Edgy.
I downloaded it, burned a CD and started the installation. In this version Ubuntu does not give you the option to install LAMP or plain vanilla at the outset, but it has created a single boot image and then you can choose to install DNS and / or LAMP at the end of installation which is good. So the installation this time also went without a problem and I was able to install the server in around 15 minutes. The real fun started after the installation when I booted Ubuntu for the first time and attempted to start X Server.
The default installation of Ubuntu lacks the following things in order to start the X server:
- GDM (It adds about 200MB to the server over the internet)
- xserver-xorg
- xfonts-base
- xfs (X Font Server).
The universe and multiverse is not enabled by default and I had to un-comment the lines from the /etc/apt/sources.list files to enable the universe and multiverse.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy universeOnce that is done, I ran an update and then it ran an update on the server. Once that is done, I installed GDM, xserver, xfonts and xfs. The complete command listing is given below.
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
mukul@usrvr:~$sudo apt-get update
mukul@usrvr:~$which gdm #This command will show /usr/sbin/gdm if GDM is installed
mukul@usrvr:~$sudo apt-get install gdm
mukul@usrvr:~$sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg
mukul@usrvr:~$sudo apt-get install xfonts-base
mukul@usrvr:~$sudo apt-get install xfs
Once this is done, I started xserver using rebooted the computer and it 
Update (2 Nov 2006): Based on the comment below, I did some additional testing and I found that to get the X server working on Ubuntu server all I had to do after installing the server is to run:
mukul@usrvr:~$sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
It adds 1350 MB of data to the computer so don't even think about it if you don't have a fast internet connection. It took me about 2 hours to download and install the update. However, once the desktop was downloaded, It was really plain sailing from there.
- Category(s)
- Linux
- Open Source
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- http://www.dharwadkar.com/weblog/ubuntu02/tbping
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
Should be sudo apt-get install xfonts-base not sudo apt-get install xfonts.base
Thanks David for pointing out the error.
mukul@usrvr:~$sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop - will install other things your server doesnt needs. like, open office. I hope there is another way of installing the X server only.
Hello Jilbert,
I am sure there is another way of installing only of X server on the server. But it is somewhat complicated and since I was playing around with this on my sand box machine I did not explore further. Now that the question is popped up, I will explore and check it out. If you would leave me your email address, I will email you when I publish that on the website.
Mukul