Ubuntu Server Install

Ubuntu is one of the easier distributions to install. It comes in server and desktop editions. We are going to talk about the server edition.

In this video I install Ubuntu Server 20.04 on a VirtualBox VM:

Ubuntu Server 20.04 is the LTS version. LTS stands for long term support. This means that it will receive updates and support for the next 5 years. Non-LTS releases will only have support for a short time which is generally a recipe for dissaster. You may want a non-LTS release anyway if you absolutely have to have the latest packages. In my experience it has generally led to more trouble than it is worth. I would recommend that you generally just use the LTS version.

See this old article I wrote on “Ubuntu Server LTS” for more info.

VirtualBox is excellent for testing Linux distributions. I generally allocate much more hard disk space than is needed and create a disk that will only grow as the space is used.