Graphical Linux desktop on AWS EC2?

Question

Can I install a GUI in Ubuntu EC2? How do I do it?

Accepted Answer

You can install GNOME desktop environment on Ubuntu. (`sudo apt install -y ubuntu-desktop &&  sudo apt install -y gdm3`)

For remote access, you can use xrdp or vnc. I suggest you try  [NICE DCV](https://aws.amazon.com/hpc/dcv/) as it is more secure, fast and has a HTML5 web client.

To install GNOME, refer to [Prerequisites for Linux NICE DCV servers](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dcv/latest/adminguide/setting-up-installing-linux-prereq.html). NICE DCV server can be installed as per [documentation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dcv/latest/adminguide/setting-up-installing-linux-server.html). Alternatively, you can create a Ubuntu EC2 instance with GUI and NICE DCV using this [GitHub cloudformation template](https://github.com/aws-samples/amazon-ec2-nice-dcv-samples).

Answer

Canonical have documentation on how to achieve this with VNC.  You can follow this here: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/ubuntu-desktop-aws#1-overview

Graphical Linux desktop on AWS EC2?

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