Ubuntu Server

We use Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS which is supported until 2023. We download it the normal way from https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server . We check to make sure that the file is intact by running

echo "ea6ccb5b57813908c006f42f7ac8eaa4fc603883a2d07876cf9ed74610ba2f53 *ubuntu-18.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso" | sha256sum --check

which gives you an OK. Move to USB stick with Startup Disk Creator.

Memory Test

Before we can proceed, we use the Ubuntu USB stick’s memory test function to make sure that our RAM is okay.

System performing RAM test

This can take hours.

Basic installation

After the memory test, reboot and start installing the server.

Warning

During the install, do not select the option to install Docker. This will install Docker into a snap, which will then not work correctly. In fact, you probably want to avoid all snaps.

Afterwards, we update the system and reboot to be sure:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo reboot

The name of the user we install as will be user1 in our examples.

Note

Most of the examples here have sudo in front of them to mark that they have to be executed by the superuser. If you tire of this (and you will), use

sudo su -

to switch to root permanently. Remember to exit as soon as possible.