Putting a head on a UBUNTU server
 

I need a head on my server for eclipse IDE and a few other utils. It is not by choice. When using aptitude to install it is threatening to remove a bunch of apache2 mods and other needed things. In addition I DO NOT want FORCED integrated administration as it seems Ubuntu likes to push.

Question:
1) will installing ubuntu-desktop screw up my services ?
2) Is there a sane way to add a head (preferably GNOME) without interfering with server services (such as Apache2) ?

Im sure I am not the only one facing a dilemma like this. I am forced towards UBUNTU due to supported packages.

Thanks in advance,
Eric Peyser

If all you want to install is the Gnome desktop for Eclipse (means, you don't need all the other desktop stuff, like an office suite, mediaplayers, ...) just install the package gnome-core instead of Ubuntu-desktop. This shouldn't remove anything.

@TobiSGD
Yeh I am low maintenance on the GUI end of things. Will see what aptitude reports when I try that package. Will post results for future ref.

Thx for the suggestion.


Results :
OUCH !
Just attempted and it wants to remove 23 items. Among the items are apache2, apache2.2-common, mysql-server ..... all the way up to perl libs and samba.

please don't hate me for samba LOL... It will be on a different eth and also be firewalled to remain internal. just a quick N dirty fix :)


Still in the same predicament.

I dont understand why they are integrating the GUI so heavily.... everyone should learn from it taking micro$oft 20+ years to come out with a server that runs in core mode (ie a mouse driver wont hang the whole server and we wont mention memory leaks, clogged registry, need for weekly reboots !).


Still looking for suggestions.

thx in advance,

Eric Peyser

Installing a desktop on a server usually shouldn't remove anything. At least it didn't on my Debian server. Does it try the same with a different DE, for example when you try to install LXDE or XFCE? Is there anything unusual in your sources.list?

out of the box LAMP 12.04.1 LTS Server. Just accidentally accepted "aptitude install gnome". I agree with you on that it shouldn't touch services. I dont understand why it had apache2 + under "REMOVE :". I should have done install from putty so I could have captured output. I have my webserver serving some php pages so..... I will be able to report if there are any differences that occur during the install. I have a feeling I am going to have to adjust apache config and changes like that.

Luckily I just loaded the OS fresh yesterday and only have a few hours into configuring it. I have the directories such as var/www backed up so blowing out this installation wont be too painful. I have learned harder lessons LOL. I will report back on files that were changed. It seemed to stop and start apache service so I am assuming there were some config changes. rebooting now !

Grrr....
It killed Apache and mysql as far as I can see. apache at first glance threw an error "no MPM package installed". gnome didnt start and was unable to be started. tried to purge gnome with aptitude and it didnt even recognize it even though it shows up in the aptitude gui. Just ran the same command ("aptitude install gnome") to see what my box is thinking. It gave me a much slimmer output of things it was going to do. so I continued. install finished and "gdm" file now showed up in /etc/init.d/. I started service and now I have Gnome. Problem still exists with apache service ("No apache MPM installed"). Im sure other core services are hosed as-well. just going to investigate logs to see WTF happened.

DO NOT TRY "aptitude install gnome" as a solution.

Why did it even have to touch my services, screw up SYS V compatability, and a slew of other things a GUI does not need to touch ?

I am tempted to just blow everything out and say F the GUI and install Solaris. This is disgusting in my eyes. Did a micro$oft employee join the open source team and infiltrate our great linux world. I smell a conspiracy ! :(

Well now I have Gnome and NO SERVER. I dont get it !

Reloading Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS Server. Going to try to add GUI. Any ideas ?

system fully hosed by "aptitude install gnome".



Thx in advance,
Eric Peyser

Solved
 

Shared dependencies play a big part of services getting changed to be able to share compatibility with GUI dependencies. With that said here is my resolution.
Quick guide to making it work:
Install the following:
LXDE - Lightweight desktop with no effect on server functionality
xinit - some x-windows frame windows (I had to use this to get the video working.).
firefox and all the extras you want. Currently working on getting eclipse install working for DEV.


GUI can now be started with "startx" command ctrl-alt-f7 to switch to GUI.

Short rant:
Unhappy that Ubuntu claims that there is no difference between server and desktop editions. Clearly there is if they both use different dependencies. this impacts core server daemons like apache and mysql. Installing "Desktop Environments" after a server install WILL HOSE your services. See the list of services affected under the "REMOVE :" column (in aptitude). I can go on and on but I will stop here:)



Also GUI can be automated to exec on startup via init scripts if you use it often.


Hope this helps someone avoid the headaches.

Regards,
Eric Peyser

Alternatively, one could install a lightweight window manager like Openbox. Any window manager should be more lightweight than a full-blown desktop environment.

@R3nCi In theory it makes a lot of sense. I just happened to try LDXE and it was successful. It seems on the net this topic has a lot of misinformation. I just posted the solution that worked for me. I agree with the DE approach infringing on the dependencies that are shared by core server services. Just found out the hard way. 10.04LTS didn't seem to have the same problems. I was able to load a full blown DE on top of my server. Believe it or not it didn't have much impact resource wise. I am almost embarrassed having to load any GUI on my server..... but it was necessary to have a few things accessible such as Firefox for research and Eclipse for my DEV. I guess we cannot always have an ideal situation, however workarounds and countless configurations is what Linux is all about. By choice if i didn't need certain support for needed packages I would prefer Solaris. Linux although has been getting better still lacks a lot of needed debugging tools such as Dtrace (which is ported poorly to Linux). And as we all know REDHAT was an industry standard and the first Linux adopted to have any sort of real commercial tech support.... but I refuse to use Fedora and be a beta tester for their flagship "REDHAT".


Sorry for the off topic rant.

R3nCi,
is there any advantages that Openbox has to offer that LXDE does not ?


Regards,
Eric Peyser

That's quite subjective. I have never tried LXDE at length, but I know from intensive use of Openbox that it is infinitely customizable, lightweight and actually quite nice-looking. :)