How to get Desktop Linux on Alibaba Cloud

This section describes how to launch and connect to Desktop Linux on Alibaba Cloud environment.

1. Go to “GUI based Desktop Linux” offer listing on Alibaba Cloud Marketplace .

2. Click on Choose Your Plan button.

• You will be redirected to Basic Configurations Page.

Select the Billing Method, Region and Zone where you want to launch the VM(such as Singapore, Zone A)

• Optionally change the number of cores and amount of memory.

• Optionally change the Sytem Disk and size.

• On Networking tab, Optionally change the VPC, Bandwidth Billing and Bandwidth Options.
• Select the Security Group.Be sure that whichever Security Group you specify has ports 22 (for ssh) and 3389 (for RDP) exposed.

• On System Configurations tab, Select Logon Credentials as Password and enter the password.

• On Grouping tab, Optionally change the Resource Group and other settings.

• Click Preview and Create Instance when you are done.

• GUI based Desktop Linux will begin deploying.

  3. To SSH the VM, first note the public IP address of the instance as highlighted below.

4. Open putty, enter the public IP here and hit Open.

5. This will open SSH window. Login as root and enter the password set during the VM creation
6. Now set the password for ubuntu user. Run below command to set the password for “ubuntu” user

sudo passwd ubuntu

7. Now the password for ubuntu user is set, you can connect to the VM’s desktop environment from any local windows machine using RDP or linux machine using Remmina.

8. To connect using RDP via Windows machine, first note the Public IP of the VM

9. Then From your local windows machine, goto “start” menu, in the search box type and select “Remote desktop connection”

10. In the “Remote Desktop connection” wizard, paste the Public IP and click connect

11. This will connect you to the VM’s desktop environment. Provide “ubuntu” as the userid and password set in above step 6 to authenticate. Click OK

12. Now you are connected to out of box GUI based Desktop Linux environment via Windows machines.

13. To connect using RDP via Linux machine, first note the external IP of the VM from VM details page,then from your local Linux machine, goto menu, in the search box type and select “Remmina”.

Note: If you don’t have Remmina installed on your Linux machine, firstInstall Remmina as per your linux distribution.

14. In the “Remmina Remote Desktop Client” wizard, select the RDP option from dropdown and paste the external ip and click enter.

15. This will connect you to the VM’s desktop environment. Provide “ubuntu” as the userid and the password set in step 6 to authenticate. Click OK

16. Now you are connected to out of box GUI based Desktop Linux environment via Linux machine.

Note: If any of the application is not starting from desktop, you can start it from applications menu option on top left or from the terminal using .
Ex. for timeshift use sudo timeshift-gtk, for synaptic use sudo synaptic, for gparted use sudo gparted