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I'm new to linux but I know about the startx command which is not working. I just installed Ubuntu Server (the newest version) on a old computer. I have it working but I am unable to launch the gui. I cannot connect to the internet because I don't have a network adapter. How would I start the gui?

Joe Scotto
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  • Why run a server with no network adapter? And who makes a computer without one? Must be an OLD computer lol, BTW try to state exact versions when asking questions as this question in 6 months, "newest version" may not be the truth. – FreeSoftwareServers Aug 01 '15 at 01:45
  • Your option is either to get all required packages necessary for gui ( from another computer with Internet ) , transfer them to the server via usb , and install manually, or get a usb wifi dongle , connect to the Web and run `sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop` or any other gui that you may prefer – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Aug 01 '15 at 02:09

2 Answers2

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Ubuntu Server does not come with a GUI. Its Headless, IE: Command Line Only. You would need to run an APT-GET command which requires internet.

If you get network capabilities check out..

Install GUI on Ubuntu Server

Community
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FreeSoftwareServers
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Even when @FreeSoftwareServers is true, there's a way to install a GUI, download a desktop version of ubuntu, i think xubuntu (xfce) is more suitable since it's an old computer (limited resources). Burn the cd and put it on the machine.

Then you have to create a dir to mount the cd

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/cdrom

Mount the cd on that dir, and check it ( instructions here if this doesn't work )

mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
du

That should show something like

.... 
/dev/sr0    952320    952320    0    100%   /mnt/cdrom

Then add the cd as apt source

sudo apt-cdrom -m --cdrom=/mnt/cdrom add

Then update the sources

sudo apt-get update

Install xfce4 and slim

sudo apt-get install xfce4 slim

Finally reboot the machine

sudo reboot

Note: the login didn't work the first time but from that point it worked properly.

bistoco
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  • Very nice non-internet answer!~ I'm impressed. – FreeSoftwareServers Aug 03 '15 at 03:17
  • @FreeSoftwareServers, i was trying to teach myself how to do it, that's why every step is properly described. Also, i don't know if i'll remember it later, so better to explain it for coming back another day. – bistoco Aug 03 '15 at 06:55