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I recently installed Ubuntu on my old MacBook Pro 2016 (ubuntu-22.04.3-live-server-amd64.iso). Why does the UI look like a terminal (see the following picture) rather than all the pretty UIs that I see from others?

picture of screen

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    The ISO you used is the Server ISO. It's designed to run on a headless machine without a GUI. You need to use the Desktop edition installer, not the server edition installer.
    – Thomas Ward ♦
    Commented Feb 11 at 20:35
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    @James see my answer and the comment from Daniel T that links to the explanation which explains the difference. YOu can either reinstall with the Desktop ISO or try installing ubuntu-desktop
    – Thomas Ward ♦
    Commented Feb 12 at 1:53
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    Your suggestion worked @ThomasWard! I tried 'sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop' and it flashed an error where it couldn't find the IP? So I redid the install with the desktop ISO, and now the UI is looking as expected. Thanks so much.
    – James
    Commented Feb 12 at 4:20
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    Please remember to clean your screen and keyboard regularly :)
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Feb 12 at 7:46
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    @IlmariKaronen At this level of muck, I suspect the fans could also do with a blast-out!
    – spender
    Commented Feb 12 at 15:13

1 Answer 1

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The ISO you used is the Server ISO. It's designed to run on a headless machine without a GUI. You need to use the Desktop edition installer, not the server edition installer.

While theoretically you can get the desktop up by running sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop, if you haven't done anything with the machine yet then the simpler solution is to download the Desktop ISO, make an installer disk for it, and then install the Desktop edition and wipe the Server edition from your system. That's one of the easiest solutions.

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