Question about VPS & Operating System

**AdamJ** · June 15th, 2008, 09:10

Hey guys, just wondering if anyone could answer this. Right the situation is:

I order a VPS which has Ubuntu as its operating system, can I use Ubuntu like any mormal desktop PC, as in interface wise, without a control panel, but still be able to have a cP on it if I need one for MySQL etc?

Is that possible?

Thanks,
Adz

**Skylar** · June 15th, 2008, 09:24

I do not think you can actually do that with a VPS, but I know you could if you installed the Ubuntu version on your desktop.

I think the only thing you could do that would be similar to that would be SSH commands, and you would have to know a lot to get yourself around -- that is the primary reason why control panels had been created, so the user didn't have to know a lot of commands for SSH

**Erizo** · June 15th, 2008, 12:07

Well, you can install gnome, and i don't think that would interfere with having a control panel, but i am not sure. (Gnome is a remote desktop GUI)

**AdamJ** · June 15th, 2008, 12:12

Thanks guys

I might look into it. Say, whilst on the subject, would it be the same situation if I used say Windows Server 2003/2008?

**bryonhost1** · June 15th, 2008, 13:47

Hi!
No..Normal access to a Windows server (or even VPS) is Remote Desktop..and it is a GUI for accessing remote systems.

With a Windows 2003 Server..you could have VMware or Virtual Server 2005 VPS's on it...but with 2008 using hyper-v (64bit only!) you can have certain linux and windows vps's...and it has been reported that you can even run a xen linux kernel on Hyper-v as well.

I have not got that far into it. My current hangup is the Microsoft Virtual Switch..which...it seems..cannot be setup while using remote desktop.

In other words..someone is going to have to do it for me at the NOC.

However...if all you want is a GUI-like control panel for Mysql and php...you could install
PHPmyadmin..which is open-source.

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php

Other control panels are available without spending the cost and resources on Cpanel.

One on my favs is webmin

http://www.webmin.com/

Bryon

**RagekiCalvin** · June 18th, 2008, 20:51

say no to webmin, they mess up your stuffs!

**Richard** · June 19th, 2008, 03:34

Originally Posted by RagekiCalvin

say no to webmin, they mess up your stuffs!

Not if you know how to use it.

**BVZ** · June 20th, 2008, 15:47

I use Windows Server 2003 with RealVNC Enterprise Edition - works wonders and allows me to install my own software easily. For instance, I prefer Abyss Web Server to Apache (I only use Apache in official business due to its monopoly) and I can easily install Abyss with RealVNC. I also use it to set up gameservers and the like. Very useful.

**fnixws** · June 20th, 2008, 19:04

Why would u use VNC with Windows Server 2003? RDC is much better and comes built in

**Richard** · June 20th, 2008, 19:49

Originally Posted by fnixws

Why would u use VNC with Windows Server 2003? RDC is much better and comes built in

There is a limit to RDC connections

**~ServerPoint~** · June 25th, 2008, 03:31

But they do depend on your VPS provider.

**JasonS** · June 25th, 2008, 11:42

Hey,

The closest you will get to seeing the physical desktop remotely is probably KVMoIP.

**[AS]Richard** · June 25th, 2008, 17:08

Try RapidCP or zPanel for free control panels, though a cPanel VPS license is a lot cheaper than the regular dedicated server ones.

**Dynash** · June 25th, 2008, 17:21

You're missing the point, he never asked about what CPs you can use on a VPS.

**Erizo** · June 25th, 2008, 18:03

Taken from a post made by Caleb on KnownHost's forums.

Originally Posted by Caleb

Alright this is pretty cool so I figured I would type up a tutorial on how to do this real quick. I would like to note a few things to start off. This tutorial is assuming you have YUM (I think all KH VPSes do) and is for installing the KDE window manager, although you can really use whatever window manager you'd like. Some of this tutorial was borrowed from the one at WHT posted by Sean Koons of zone.net. Also, this works fine on my VPS-M with about 33MB of RAM to spare, but make sure you have at least 128MB of unused ram to allocate for VNC. I wouldn't recommend this on a highly used cpanel/plesk VPS as it can cause spikes in RAM usage and possibly kill needed processes. Here goes nothing!

First login as root to your server and run the following:

yum -y groupinstall kde (replace kde with gnome for gnome install)
yum -y install vnc vnc-server firefox x11-xorg

Ok now start up the vnc server with the 'vncserver' command and it will prompt you to enter a desired password. Just type what you want to use in and then confirm it. Now do 'pkill -9 vnc' followed by 'rm -rf /tmp/.X1*'

Now do 'cd /root/.vnc/' and then open the xstartup file in your text editor. Replace the last line with 'startkde &' (without quotes of course).

Now just type 'vncserver' to start it up and connect to your hostname on port 1 via your VNC client. I recommend RealVNC for windows users and Mac users can use VNCViewer. I tried chicken of the VNC for mac and it didn't work for me, vncviewer did, however.

Now you are able to use your VPS via a remote desktop!

When you are done simply do 'pkill -9 vnc' and then 'rm -rf /tmp/.X1*'

I dunno if this will work, or if this is what you were looking for, but you're welcome to try