Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Homelab Hacker Blog Entry #0x00: Installing Ubuntu Desktop Minimal via Server Base

Hey there. Not sure how you arrived at this page, but I hope you find this a useful read.

This post is about how I like to set up my favorite version of GNU/Linux, Ubuntu!

Whenever the new version drops (it's like Christmas, but twice a year!), I like to try it out.

I'm a multi-os kind of guy.

I like to use Mac OS (this keyboard though lol) on Apple hardware, an extension of my use of their tablets and phones (which i havent jailbroken in years). Havent tried any M1 hardware yet, but I'm (painfully!) typing this on a Macbook Pro from 2016 or so. Have an older MBP from 2007 that was my first baby. Had a older MBP that i overnighted to a friend a year back because he needed a mac for freelance work. I have two apple tvs. I dont know objective-c or swift but i buy a new mac every once in a while with the plan to write an app for my watch or carplay or anything to break into the ultra profitable apple store lol.

At work, I use Windows 10 for web development. I work in a CMS called sitecore. Enough about that. Today I wrote JavaScript, TypeScript, and T-SQL, to implement a new feature for the company. I dont want to say that I enjoy Windows, but its a fact of my life. It is what it is. I could find a job that didnt require using it but its not that big of a sticking point for me. I wont say I "put up with it" because I love my job.

My home "router" if you want to call it that is a cheap dual core Walmart PC with an add in pcie dual port gigabit NIC. It runs PFSense, a version of FreeBSD engineered for networking. I learned about it when I worked for New York Internet, a company that managed colocation datacenters. I learned a lot there. Also, maybe two years ago, I invested in a NAS with ECC memory, and ran FreeNAS on it, until it became TrueNAS, and I eventually reinstalled after I was certain I could migrate my pool without issue.

My servers are generally ubuntu. Sometimes CentOS, or Fedora, or Debian. I like to virtualize with VMWare workstation, though its lost some of the features i like over the years. I used to run a Proxmox cluster, but found it difficult to remove nodes when i wanted to repurpose a host into a dedicated server for something else.

Anyway. Back to ubuntu.

I grab a server iso, usually from bit torrent.

Then I install the base system, without selecting any add on package groups, and always opt to install openssh server. I am always frustrated to find out that I've forgotten to install or enable it, and usually at the worst time (trying to remote in from another box, across the room, in another room, or across the internet)!

Even if I want a desktop system, I've found it more satisfying to install the base ubuntu os from a server disk, reboot, and then install the minimal desktop.

sudo apt-get install tasksel

sudo tasksel install ubuntu-desktop-minimal

That's it! Those two lines are why i wrote this post lol


edit:

I have found the following helpful to enable network manager to manage all interfaces

backup /etc/netplan/*whatever*.yaml

sudo vi /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml

make it look like

network:

  version: 2

  renderer: NetworkManager

sudo netplan generate

sudo netplan apply

sudo service network-manager restart

sudo systemctl restart network-manager

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