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• aka the Debian based bloatware: GNU Linux Debian is usually (try console AND graphical setup) straigh forward easy to setup can deal with as little RAM as 512MBytes
  • Ubuntu server WITHOUT a desktop already uses 600MBytes of RAM #wtf
  • so have AT LEAST 8GB RAM + i5 or faster available
• But if it has to be Ubuntu and the user wants a minimal desktop: try XFCE or MATE would probably be ressource efficient options (4GB of RAM)
• it is recommended (in most cases) to use LVM + encryption during boot and enable lightdm’s auto login
  • = only 1x password during boot that decrypts harddisk
  • because: its important that data is encrypted so if the device gets physically stolen = not a problem
  • but having to type 10x passwords during boot makes everyday use inefficient

hostnamectl; # tested on
Static hostname: ubuntu
Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS 
Kernel: Linux 5.15.0-101-generic
Architecture: x86-64

su - root
apt update
apt upgrade

LXQt

apt install lxqt

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as can be seen Ubuntu + LXQt desktop use ~1.5GBytes of RAM

MATE

mate is a very minimalistic, simple yet powerfull GUI

apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop

also possible to try:

apt install ubuntu-desktop-minimal

no matter what gui, here is how to enable user auto login with lightdm window manager 😀

# enable auto login
# so if harddisk is encrypted (which it should be)
# then entering only one password during boot is enough
# modify username to the user that shall auto login
touch /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
echo "[SeatDefaults]" >> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf;
echo "autologin-user=username" >> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf;
echo "autologin-user-timeout=0" >> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf;
echo "user-session=ubuntu" >> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf;
echo "# Uncomment the following, if running Unity" >> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf;
echo "#greeter-session=unity-greeter" >> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf;

how to uninstall remove desktop?

su - root
# what variant was installed?
dpkg -l|grep desktop|grep ubuntu
ii ubuntu-advantage-desktop-daemon 1.10~22.04.1 amd64 Daemon to allow access to ubuntu-advantage via D-Bus
ii ubuntu-desktop-minimal 1.481.1 amd64 The Ubuntu desktop minimal system
ii ubuntu-settings 22.04.6 all default settings for the Ubuntu desktop

apt uninstall ubuntu-desktop-minimal
apt purge lightdm
apt purge vlc
apt autoremove
reboot

what is ubuntu’s universe software repository?

• “universe component is a snapshot of the free, open-source, and Linux world.
• “houses almost every piece of open-source software, all built from a range of public sources”
• “Canonical does not provide a guarantee of regular security updates for software in the universe component, but will provide these where they are made available by the community” (src)