Since 1996, XFCE Desktop gives users the ability to have a graphical user interface (GUI) environment, visually turning your Linux server into an environment more like your desktop computer. With its no-frills look, XFCE does not weigh heavy on the server’s hardware and is faster than GNOME and KDE to boot. Once completed with this small tutorial, you’ll be able to share and connect to the XFCE GUI by continuing to the next tutorial on How To Install VNC.
Pre-flight
- These instructions are intended for installing Xfce Desktop Environment on an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server.
- Logged in as a root user, but for non-root users precede all commands with the word sudo.
Step 1: Update apt-get
With best practices in mind, we will update before proceeding to install XFCE 4
apt-get update
Step 2: Install XFCE4 Desktop Environment
With one command we can install Xfce itself and some useful utilities that come with Xfce:
apt-get install -y xfce4 xfce4-goodies
Step 1:
Run each of these commands so that apt-get can utilize them during the purge of Xfce.
apt-get -f install
apt-get clean
apt-get autoclean
apt-get update
Step 2:
Purge Xfce from your Ubuntu server:
apt-get purge xfce4
As mentioned in our opening paragraph the next step is to configure VNC (virtual network computing) Installing VNC is necessary to open the recently installed Xfce interface. It’s optional but advisable to set up an SSH tunnel that connects to VNC for a secure connection. Check out our Knowledge Base on the subject of VNC to find your choice of articles.