Pros and Cons of installing Ubuntu GUI on an Ubuntu Server/ Most Lightweight Ubuntu GUI for Ubuntu Server

[babadoctor]

http://askubuntu.com/questions/53822/how-do-you-run-ubuntu-server-with-a-gui

What is the most lean/lightweight GUI environment for an Ubuntu 16.0.4 32bit server? 

The computer is quite slow, so, it would benefit me a lot to install something lightweight. (512MB of vram with a 12 year old GPU from the dump)

I saw this on that article:

sudo aptitude install --without-recommends ubuntu-desktop

Is that the most lightweight I can get in order to not affect performance?

 

[Jade]

Could do LXDE (Included with Ubuntu as Lubunutu).

sudo apt-get install lxde

[.:MARK:.]

2 hours ago, babadoctor said:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/53822/how-do-you-run-ubuntu-server-with-a-gui

What is the most lean/lightweight GUI environment for an Ubuntu 16.0.4 32bit server? 

The computer is quite slow, so, it would benefit me a lot to install something lightweight. (512MB of vram with a 12 year old GPU from the dump)

I saw this on that article:

sudo aptitude install --without-recommends ubuntu-desktop

Is that the most lightweight I can get in order to not affect performance?

 

Can I ask why you want to run a GUI on a server?

[babadoctor]

On 1/1/2017 at 6:48 PM, .:MARK:. said:

Can I ask why you want to run a GUI on a server?

Well, I archive youtube videos on it, so I would prefer not using my slow LAN connection to scrub through lots of footage and actually do it on the server...

 

Do you happen to know a good alternative?
Is this a good approach?

I am new to this stuff, so any input would be greatly appreciated.

(I know how to operate the server through the CLI well.)

[.:MARK:.]

I'm not too sure exactly what you are trying to do, but there is a software package called youtube-dl that can do a whole lot of youtube related things and works in a CLI.

[babadoctor]

On 1/2/2017 at 3:56 AM, .:MARK:. said:

I'm not too sure exactly what you are trying to do, but there is a software package called youtube-dl that can do a whole lot of youtube related things and works in a CLI.

Well, that is actually the program I use to download the videos. I wanted a GUI to be able to just visit the server to view the videos instead of having to download it from my server, which is sometimes painfully slow.

[2FA]

I don't see an issue with it personally, a GUI isn't going to take up enough resources to affect performance generally in just about every situation.

[babadoctor]

1 hour ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

I don't see an issue with it personally, a GUI isn't going to take up enough resources to affect performance generally in just about every situation.

Okay, lets say it doesn't affect performance.

When i install this GUI, will there be any side effects on the system? e.g affects on sshing speed when i want to ssh into it,

 

Moreso, i want to know if there will be a problem with uninstalling it, I certainly don't want to get ANY type of error on the disk, because the youtube videos on there are very important...

Will this have any unintended side effects when i uninstall/install it?

[Flygenring]

17 hours ago, babadoctor said:

Okay, lets say it doesn't affect performance.

When i install this GUI, will there be any side effects on the system? e.g affects on sshing speed when i want to ssh into it,

 

Moreso, i want to know if there will be a problem with uninstalling it, I certainly don't want to get ANY type of error on the disk, because the youtube videos on there are very important...

Will this have any unintended side effects when i uninstall/install it?

As long as you don't make it run at startup and just run it when you need it, also if you don't plan on installing more than one DE you can just open the GUI/DE with "startx" and just logout from the GUI/DE when you are done. Doing it that way wouldn't impact performance at all when not using the GUI/DE. Besides that, unless you use your server for rendering or other CPU-intensive tasks it shouldn't even matter if the GUI/DE are running or not. My ubuntu server just running samba, vncserver and LXDE uses about 250-300 MB's of ram for example. I do understand you concern however, messing with servers with critical data is always "exciting", but you would really have to screw something up removing a package to do any damage whatsoever. I hope it works out for you and that I have cleared it up a bit. The LXDE package for ubuntu takes up about 1 GB of storage (It comes with firefox and whatnot) if that is a concern to you.