How to install LXDE Desktop on your Webdock Ubuntu Server

Last updated: October 6th 2022

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Introduction

This guide explains the step by step procedure of installing the LXDE (lightweight X11 desktop environment) on the Webdock server. LXDE is a lightweight desktop environment alternative to GNOME and has only basic features and applications.

Prerequisites

Installing LXDE

First update the packages and repositories on your Webdock server.

# sudo apt update -y

Install the LXDE on your Webdock server.

# sudo apt install lxde

On Ubuntu 20.04, while installing the desktop environment, it will ask for the default display manager.

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Select the default display manager from the list and select the OK button to continue.

Installing XRDP server

Tip: You may want to try NoMachine instead which is an XRDP alternative which offers superior performance and features.

Now install the xrdp server to listen for an RDP connection on your Webdock server.

# sudo apt install xrdp

Start and enable the xrdp service.

# sudo systemctl enable xrdp.service
# sudo systemctl start xrdp.service

Now, we need to add xrdp to ssl-cert user group.  XRDP uses an ssl certificate and we need to make it readable to our user.

$ sudo adduser xrdp ssl-cert

NOTE: XRDP server runs on port 3389 so in case of Webdock perfect server stack, you need to allow traffic from port 3389 to connect to your Desktop Environment.

# sudo ufw allow 3389

Connect to the server over RDP

In order to connect to the Webdock server, first create a shell user from the Webdock dashboard. Click on ‘more’ option from the top right corner.

connect-1.png

Select the ‘Shell Users’.

connect-2.png

Enter the username and password for the new shell user and click on Add User’.

connect-3.png

Use this shell username and password to connect to the Webdock server over RDP.

To learn more about connecting to the Webdock server over RDP from Windows, Linux or Mac, visit this guide

Test LXDE on Webdock

After connecting to the Webdock server over RDP, open the LXTerminal on the Webdock server and check the current desktop session using the following command.

# env | grep CURRENT_DESKTOP

Output:

XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=LXDE

Conclusion

This article explains the step by step procedure to install LXDE on your Webdock server. LXDE is a lightweight and fast desktop environment suitable for servers with lower resources. Visit the official site of LXDE to learn more about its applications and features.

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