hello all at linuxquestions

first off would just like to say how useful this resource is, Ive been setting up a VM server in lubuntu recently and this site has given me alot of help and helped me get it off the ground. Im certainly a linux noob and only been messing around in linux for a week, so please forgive me for any derpy terminology

anyway, I installed lubuntu onto a VM as an intention to use it as a server
to be honest it was an ISO I had lying around and due to it being "light" I just went for it

however I have since discovered ubuntu do a flavour known as "ubuntu server"

first off..
what is the difference between ubuntu server and regular ubuntu/lubuntu etc?
is it just that it does not load a full fat gui?
if there is a big diffrence would it be easy to "turn" lubuntu into ubuntu server? since they are sort of based off each other?

secondly, lubuntu loads up lxde upon boot, I was wondering if there was a way for it to just boot up without the gui with the option to turn it on via shell (startx etc)
this is because I have little ram to play with but I also like to use the GUI sometimes when needing to do certain admin stuff, for example I use steam via Wine to download steam games sometimes

I was pondering the idea of installing ubuntu server and then downloading the lxde desktop and going that route, but Im not sure if it would bring any benefit opposed to just modifiying my current lubuntu installation

any advise or tips would be welcome

thanks!

You might try installing the server, then adding:

This lets you get as much or as little of the GUI as you want, and can make for a much lighter system. (You could also use xubuntu the same way.)

Ubuntu server IIRC is just Ubuntu without the GUI and a couple server packages installed by default.

To disable the GUI on boot, you need to disable the display manager from running. There are several display managers: gdm, ldm, kdm, etc. First step is to figure out which one you're running, and disable it in upstart as shown here:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/76543...user-selection

Note that this link is for gdm, but the same genera; procedure should work for any display manager.

what packages does server run over desktop?
I may get away with just adapting the lubuntu install

really cant be bothered starting again from scratch

found this thread that sorted out the gui query
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2234405
"sudo service lightdm start" starts the gui