Installing a GUI on Debian / Ubuntu

Installing a GUI on Debian / Ubuntu

The Debian and Ubuntu options in our VPSes don't come with any graphical user interface by default. There are many options for the look-and-feel of a GUI in Linux, but for lightweight (low resource usage) window management, this article will use Xfce. Tested with Debian 9 and Ubuntu 18.04

The following commands are to be run as root in your VPS (via SSH or GetVNC)

Note: it is recommended to run

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

before proceeding, make sure you have the latest version of all packages.

To install the minimum requirements for the Xfce window manager (including X windows), run

apt-get install xfce4

Edit ~/.xsession to end with

exec startxfce4

You can now set up the remote access method of your choice or use Actions -> Get VNC from cloud control, login, and run 'startx'