Thank you! Now *that* advice actually worked.

Mind you, I had to do the ubuntu install twice and it went quite differently the second (successful) time. Getting the systemd service file to work took a few attempts as well; for some reason it doesn't like to do 1920x1080 in a service file but is ok with a commandline... weird.

For some reason I didn't get offered an option for the 'package tasks' either.

All in all the experience has been a reminder of how important a clean, intelligible, correct(!), download and start/configure process is and how incredibly frustrating it is to have dozens of not-actually-functional 'tutorials' online.

On 2020-06-01, at 3:09 PM, Paul DeBruicker pdebruic@gmail.com wrote:

How anyone would find this out from their website I've no idea but there are two different official "server" install iso's for Ubuntu 18.04.4. The one that I think is easier to use is the "ubuntu-18.04.4-server-amd64.iso" one & not the "ubuntu-18.04.4-live-server-amd64.iso" The live one lets you test out the desktop environment without installing. The non-live one just dumps you into the debian installer (but installs ubuntu).

You can get the non-live server iso here: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases/18.04/release/

The installer documentation is here: https://help.ubuntu.com/18.04/serverguide/installing-from-cd.html

Step 15 in the directions lets you pick "package tasks" (see https://help.ubuntu.com/18.04/serverguide/installing-from-cd.html#install-ta...) You want Open SSH server and I think there is one for "Basic Ubuntu Server" that you also want. But I'm not sure whats included in that. You can also choose the "manually select packages" option and install whatever VNC packages (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configur...) you need at that time or after you login/ssh in.

timrowledge wrote

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This is well off-topic but I'm pretty sure somebody here will have done this, so -

I have a second hand lenovo i7 box that I need to install ubuntu 18.04 on and configure to use headless via vnc and ssh. It needs to be 18.04 in order to maintain compatibility with a work related server. It needs to be headless so I can stick in my server room and vnc to it from my iMac like i do with all the other machines.

Now I really thought this should be simple but it turns out to be a pain. I installed the desktop version and started reading about how to configure it. Supposedly you can turn on vnc from the settings tool but that didn't work and it appears a few gazillion other people found the same. I tried recipes from several other sources that didn't work.

I thought I'd try the server install instead - surely that would at least have ssh set up? Nope. More reading of web article claiming "it's easy!" only to find that things refuse connections, display blank vnc windows, take several minutes to boot, lock up the commandline when telling a systemd servce to start... lots of 'fun'.

Advice other than "install

<other OS> " welcome for reasons mentioned above. Thank goodness it was never this annoying to get Pi's working in this manner!

In the good news side, the 'work related' thing is converting a VW system to Squeak, so maybe this isn't as off- topic as might be thought.

tim

tim Rowledge;

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tim@

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; http://www.rowledge.org/tim Useful random insult:- Looks for the "Any" key.

-- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Squeak-Dev-f45488.html

tim -- tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.