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Deploying Ubuntu Mate Desktop as a developer environment in a Azure VM | Alexander Zeitler

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Deploying Ubuntu Mate Desktop as a developer environment in a Azure VM | Alexander Zeitler Toggle navigation Home Feed Deploying Ubuntu Mate Desktop as a developer environment in a Azure VM Written on June 01, 2016 TL;DR: While wearisome looking XFCE installation on Ubuntu Server is shown everywhere, this post shows you how to get a nice Mate Desktop on Ubuntu in Azure up and running and RDP into it. In Windows Server environments you just spin up a Server and have a GUI, install Visual Studio and start developing. But with Ubuntu Server things get a little bit increasingly complicated. I've chosen (read: learned to choose) Mate Desktop, considering it is one of the environments that looks pretty nice but doesn't require 3D velocity enabled which you just don't have in deject environments (at least not in the unstipulated compute instances). First, create a Azure VM instance of your nomination with a username and password, enable inbound Port 3389 (RDP) in its NIC security group settings and SSH into it. Enabling Port 3389 for RDP, first select "Network interfaces": Next, select the "Network security group": Select "Inbound security rules": You'll see the default inbound rules: Add a new rule for RDP via port 3389: Check the updated inbound rules: After that, install the latest updates: sudo apt-get udpate sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-ugprade With that done, install the Ubuntu Mate desktop and xrdp: export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/ppa sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/trusty-mate sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-mate-core ubuntu-mate-desktop sudo apt-get install mate-core mate-desktop-environment mate-notification-daemon sudo apt-get install xrdp Now, make Mate the default desktop environment for xrdp sessions (also for new users stuff created afterwards): reverberate mate-session> ~/.xsession sudo cp ~/.xsession /etc/skel Finally, we'll indulge waffly the host post port we can connect to (this allows reconnecting to an x-rated session): sudo vim /etc/xrdp/xrdp.iniTranspirationport=-1 in the [xrdp1] section to port=ask-1. With the changes done, restart xrdp: sudo service xrdp restart Now we're worldly-wise to RDP into our Azure VM from Windows: You should get the xrdp login screen were you enter your users credentials and make sure sesman-Xvnc module is selected: If everything went well, you should get this connection log: After a second or two, you should moreover get the Ubuntu Mate desktop screen: If you think we're washed-up now: no. Running software in the Mate environment Here are some tips for running software in that environment. Ubuntu Software Center First of all, Ubuntu Software Center doesn't work due to some configuration errors I didn't get behind.So if you have some nice .deb packages like Dropbox, just install them via Terminal: sudo dpkg -i <package>.debWafflythe timezone If you want to transpiration the timezone of your instance, you can't unlock and edit the setting in the UI. Thus, you have to run sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata in Terminal and select the towardly setting. Dropbox If you plan to install Dropbox, just download the .deb file and install it as described before.You can start Dropbox using start dropbox -i to install the daemon. After the installation you might see a weird or plane no notification icon.Just restart your Azure VM and everything should be ok. If you still wits issues, you can moreover install caja-dropbox with is optimizied for the caja file manager of MATE. Restart / Shutdown via Mate Speaking of restarting: You might notice that using the Mate logout / shutdown / restart full-length won't end your RDP session. Just use sudo reboot or sudo shutdown now -h in Terminal. Visual Studio Code / ATOM It just doesn't work in xrdp environments as of now - plane with the latest Insider build installed. Today I published a gist which describes a fix to get VS Code / ATOM in Ubuntu via RDP working. I would be happy if you share remoter tips in the comments. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Copyright © Alexander Zeitler 2003 - 2016 | Impressum