[squeak-dev] OT - setting up ubuntu headless machine w/vnc/ssh/etc

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Mon Jun 1 18:32:40 UTC 2020


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




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