Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Desktop with NX Server Free Edition

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Desktop with NX Server Free Edition, built by Eric Hammond as part of the Alestic.com series [update 2008-11-30]

Pick the Right Release

For a complete list of the Ubuntu AMIs available in this series, please see the following web page:

http://alestic.com

Selecting the correct Ubuntu AMI image for your needs will improve your EC2 experience.

Description

This AMI is an install of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy desktop with NX Server Free Edition, built by Eric Hammond. This 32-bit AMI is for running on the 32-bit instance sizes including: m1.small, c1.medium

NOTICE! If you do not need the Ubuntu desktop, this AMI is not recommended. Instead, use the Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy base install AMI which is much smaller and loads and boots in a fraction of the time.

Steps to try out the Ubuntu desktop using NX on this AMI:

• On the instance, create a system user (remember your new password):

  user-setup

• On your local computer, install and run an NX Client from NoMachine.com:
  

  http://www.nomachine.com/download.php

  Clients available for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Solaris. For example, on my local Ubuntu system, I use:

  curl -O http://64.34.161.181/download/3.2.0/Linux/nxclient_3.2.0-9_i386.deb
  sudo dpkg -i nxclient_3.2.0-9_i386.deb 
  /usr/NX/bin/nxclient --wizard

• Point the NX Client to the external hostname of your Ubuntu desktop EC2 instance and enter the username/password from above. Choose the "Gnome" desktop.

Features

Features include:

• Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy with upgraded packages (as of 2008-11-30)
• All packages associated with "ubuntu-desktop"
• NX Free Edition server 3.1.0
• Amazon EC2 AMI tools (1.3-26357 20071010) installed and patched for Ubuntu
• Uses Amazon's newer 2.6.21 kernel (2.6.21.7-2.fc8xen)

• Includes 2.6.21 kernel modules

• openssh-server installed
• On first boot, runs instance user-data script if it starts with #!
• Generate new ssh host keys on first boot and output fingerprints
• ca-certificates installed to support SSL in ec2-bundle-upload
• libc6-xen installed for performance
• /etc/apt/sources.list for gutsy main restricted universe multiverse
• /etc/event.d/tty[2-6] removed to avoid error messages in logs
• Shadow passwords enabled
• root password locked
• 10GB root (/) partition
• Network: DHCP on eth0, loopback on lo, simple /etc/hosts with localhost
• root ssh public key creditials retrieved from instance parameters or ephemeral store on startup (standard Amazon EC2 ssh access for public AMIs)
• Added "UseDNS no" to /etc/ssh/sshd_config as recommended by http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2007-03-01/DeveloperGuide/public-ami-guidelines.html
• Comment appended to /etc/motd using /etc/rc.local
• Locale en_US, Timezone UTC

Support

If you use or are thinking of using this AMI, please subscribe to the ec2ubuntu Google Group where you will find out about updates to the Ubuntu AMIs and tips for running Ubuntu on Amazon EC2.

To subscribe, send an email mesage to ec2ubuntu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Support is also available through the above forum with a growing number of folks in the community using Ubuntu on EC2 (and a good core of folks willing to answer questions).

Build Process

Advanced users may consult the following page for information on how this AMI was built and to get instructions for building their own.

http://alestic.com

History

ami-50709439 - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20081130.manifest.xml

• New --arch option from patch by Don Spaulding II
• Upgrade EC2 AMI tools to 1.3-26357 20071010
• The old 2.6.16 kernel modules are no longer bundled with the image.
• All packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-8bd733e2 - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080924.manifest.xml

• bugfix: Mounts /mnt as ephemeral storage with /etc/fstab
• All packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-f6d4309f - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080922.manifest.xml

• DEFECT: This AMI is missing /etc/fstab and does not mount /mnt as ephemeral storage!
• bugfix: Only generate ssh host keys on first boot, not on every reboot.
• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-42c4202b - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080905.manifest.xml

• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-179e7a7e - alestic/ubuntu-8.04-hardy-base-20080803.manifest.xml

• Build using latest debootstrap v1.0.10
• Output new ssh host key fingerprints to console log for security.
• Use newly built kernel modules where fuse supports NFS export.
• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-b7bc58de - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080628.manifest.xml

• Change default timezone to UTC
• Increase default root partition size to 10GB
• Upgrade NX server to latest 3.2.0 version
• Add "kubuntu-desktop" so AMI includes both Gnome and KDE
• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-0757b26e - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080517.manifest.xml

• Support instance user-data boot hook scripts.
• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions (release candidate)

ami-744bae1d - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080514.manifest.xml

• Upgrade to NX Server 3.2.0.
• Create new ssh host keys on first boot.
• Don't try to set the CMOS hwclock under Xen and save 4 seconds on boot.
• Don't try to run apparmor as we don't have the kernel module installed yet.
• Silence grep warnings about missing authorized_keys.
• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions (release candidate)

ami-aa44a1c3 - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080430.manifest.xml

• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-6f7c9906 - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080418.manifest.xml

• Upgrade to use Amazon's newer 2.6.21 kernel (2.6.21.7-2.fc8xen)
• All Ubuntu packages upgraded to latest versions

ami-b86a8fd1 - alestic/ubuntu-7.10-gutsy-desktop-20080406.manifest.xml

• Original release