Installing NX on Amazon EC2's or Your VPS's Ubuntu

NoMachine’s NX is a cool technology to GUI-ly remote your server using less bandwidth and more power responsiveness. If you miss your GUI luxury, let’s install it on your VPS, shall we?

Get some Ubuntu first, Dapper or Edgy or Feisty all work fine. Installing some kind of desktop GUI will make the journey smoother for you. And you’ll need to setup your server you accept SSH connections first, which you probably have done already.

We’re gonna use FreeNX which is already very good and has no connection/user limitation. Append this /etc/apt/sources.list:

# FreeNX
deb http://free.linux.hp.com/~brett/seveas/freenx feisty-seveas freenx
deb-src http://free.linux.hp.com/~brett/seveas/freenx feisty-seveas freenx

If you’re using Dapper or Edgy, modify the ‘feisty’ above to ‘dapper’ (‘edgy’ packages aren’t there, but reported to work just as well.) Then commence:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install freenx

Let’s set it up:

sudo nxsetup

It’ll ask you a simple question (the answer is unintuitively ‘no’). And your server should be ready.

Download a client from NoMachine web site to your liking. Install it and point it to your server.

Happy remoting! 😉

Note: In case you didn’t notice, Trizoko is a fabulous business-related blog packed with uber-useful tips for you. Check it out!