Developing a Home Server - Install full-blown Ubuntu on Laptop or Ubuntu Server

I want to "develop" a Home Server for Web Developement and other network stuff, for that i want reporpuse my old Laptop as Server machine.
Now i want to ask if you recommend to install full-blown Ubuntu or Ubuntu Server ?
I am asking this, because i don't see the graphical interface as an advantage, as i will SSH into the machine.
Are there other major differences between the two version.
And by the way i can operate with both versions.

Ps This is only temporary, because later this year i will build a raspberry pi (Zero Maybe?) Cluster, but until then i want to "construct" the server enviroment.

Filipe Ramalho

Posted 2017-10-22T17:07:50.507

Reputation: 13

Try Alpine, it might be better than Ubuntu for server. – inf3rno – 2017-10-22T18:10:43.567

How is the support for Alpine and how is the package "status" – Filipe Ramalho – 2017-10-22T18:23:44.287

Answers

If you are sure you want to go headless (no graphical UI, no Desktop) then definitely use the server version. There'a also a server (minimal) version for the Raspberry Pi.

The server version does not install GUI-Apps like Editors that require a user interface to work, and also does not install X11 and its dependencies.

On a Raspberry Pi, I once uninstalled all UI-related stuff (I think in Feb.2015 there was no server/minimal version avaliable). The SD-card was initially 94% full, after deleting all X11-stuff it was 41% full (apt-get remove --auto-remove --purge libx11-.*). Too bad I don't remember the size of the card, I guess it was 2GB, the default image size. There are also X11-related processes running in the background which you will never use when only using SSH.

Daniel F

Posted 2017-10-22T17:07:50.507

Reputation: 751

Unlike most Linux distros Ubuntu is unusual in that there are versions or editions that are technically entirely different distros like Kubuntu. However this is not the case with Ubuntu Server which is more or less a repackaging of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Server uses a different installer but uses the same repositories as Ubuntu and can easily be converted to a Ubuntu desktop by installing packages.

Incidentally going from Ubuntu to Ubuntu server wouldn't be as easy as it involves removing lots of packages.

Installing a distro like Debian for example however gives you the option in the installer to add features like servers and desktop environments that are all selectable. I mention that because not all distros take the approch of having "editions."

The Ubuntu Server edition is also commercially supported on certain VPS services while Ubuntu may not.

jdwolf

Posted 2017-10-22T17:07:50.507

Reputation: 1 974