Ubuntu – Best practices for remote GUI access to ubuntu server

The only difference between Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop, are the Desktop packages which you can install with apt-get.

I can see several reasons why I wouldn't use it on a remote server:

1. ssh is much faster, X11 over ssh would be slower.
2. It's a load on the server that it doesn't need. I prefer a server to be lean and mean, with minimal packages. It's also easier for the updates.
3. wget is very simple for downloading. I usually copy URLs from Firefox and type wget, then paste the URL
4. No need for a dedicated Linux admin, but the basic commands are quite straightforward.
5. To manage files and file transfer between the server and your PC, you could use SCP, WinSCP is a nice windows version. (SCP does its magic through ssh).
6. rsync is also a very useful command to synchronize data (one-way), you can also use Unison for two-way sync.
7. learn to use an editor, I like joe, pico, and emacs, but there are many other nice editors.

You should use VNC for exporting a GUI from the Ubuntu server.

Although VNC has some optional security features, you should not run VNC directly over an untrusted network like the Internet. Instead, you should set an SSH server up as discussed in the SSH guide and configure a VNC server that you can start in so-called once mode. When you have set up your SSH and VNC servers, you can use SSH to log in to your computer over the Internet, start your VNC server, and use port-forwarding to securely access the VNC server.

Some good clients are TightVNC and UltraVNC.

Setting up the VNC for a best-compression communication rather than a fast-compression will help over remote (across ISPs, low-bandwidth) locations.