Is it safe to remove GUI from desktop to become a server?
 

I have a mini-pc running Ubuntu 18 server and I added ubuntu desktop and lightdm to give it a GUI. In the process I updated it to Ubuntu Version 20.04.

I have decided that I don't want the GUI on this server.

Is this safe:
sudo apt autoremove ubuntu-desktop
sudo systemctl stop lightdm.service
sudo apt autoremove lightdm

Or is there a better way?
If I have to I will get another SSD and install a fresh instance of Ubuntu server then copy the data from the original SSD. But that's a LOT of work.

Yes.

sudo apt purge ubuntu-desktop lightdm is how I would proceed. sudo systemctl disable lightdm.service, then rebooting would mask any awareness that any GUI is on the system more simply than outright removal, and keep it available in case in the future you decide it would be useful to have available.

I would never have installed ubuntu-desktop in the first place. :D

For such a large component I'm willing to lay a side-bet that more things will be on the list generated for removal than you ever imagined. Leave it there and simply disable it as suggested. There is a big chance a later update will re-activate it tho' I'd reckon .... :shrug:

Yes, if you have enough disk space just disable it and do not start GUI any more. You might want to disable bluetooth, audio and other services too, but actually you don't need to remove anything.
From the other hand you may need to create a backup before removing gui. Also you might want to install ubuntu 22.04 server instead.

I went with MrMazda's solution. All is good now.
Thanks to all who replied.

In that case you might want to mark the thread as solved.

Actually, it's sometimes very handy to be able to start a GUI session from a remote computer ... which you certainly can do, since Linux windowing systems actually have a client/server architecture. (Normally, both client and server run on the same machine. But the graphic-server portion can run even on a machine that does not even have a graphics card, and a client can be anywhere else.) Therefore, I wouldn't bother to strip the GUI functionality from a computer that is now going to be treated as a server. You're really not going to gain anything by doing it, and server performance won't be impacted by it being there. It just won't be used.


This architecture is clean and efficient. Per contra, the GUI implementation (and thus, the "remote desktop") used by Microsoft is much more expensive and "clunky," relying on the transmission of bitmaps back and forth. (Yes, it works, but not graciously ...)

Isn’t it as simple as configuring the server to boot to runlevel 3?
Or am I missing something?

How do I do that? I don't see a "solved" button anywhere.

As per the Site FAQ in the menu: