How to Install the Xfce Desktop on Ubuntu 14

By default Liquid Web servers running Ubuntu 14.04 don’t include a graphical desktop environment. It’s easy, however, to install the Xfce Desktop Environment on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, if need be.

Keep in mind that once Xfce is installed on a hosted server, you’ll need a method to share and connect to the graphical desktop environment. That’s where VNC, or Virtual Network Computing, comes in. Once you finish this tutorial visit our tutorial on: How to Install VNC Server on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

• These instructions are intended for installing Xfce Desktop Environment on a single Ubuntu 14.04 LTS node.
• I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Core Managed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS server, and I’ll be logged in as a non-root user, but with sudo access. For information on giving a user sudo access visit our page on How to Add a User and Grant Root Privileges on Ubuntu 14.04.

As a matter of best practices, let’s reload the package database:

sudo apt-get update

At this point, installing Xfce Desktop Environment is as simple as running just one command:

sudo apt-get install -y xfce4 xfce4-goodies

Again, once Xfce is installed on a hosted server you’ll need a method to share and connect to the graphical desktop environment. That’s where VNC, or Virtual Network Computing, comes in. Once you finish this tutorial visit our tutorial on: How to Install VNC Server on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.