Ubuntu Server

I’m using Ubuntu Server, as it seems to have the most amount of “beginner” support resources available (forums, blogs etc.).

Installing the thing on VMWare is pretty straight forward, download the ISO, create a default “Ubuntu 64” image and then fire the thing up.

Some notes:

1. I’m creating the thing as a “base” image, for want of a better word. So I need to figure out how to clone things properly – I can just copy the folder using the data store browser, or just us command line tools via SSH, but I want to check I’m doing things in the right way.
2. I’ve created the base image with a standard username and password, along with the default “ubuntu” as a host name. I need to remember how to change the hostname.
3. I want to make sure the thing is kept up to date in terms of patches.
4. It would be useful to have a “hardened” image for anything that needs to face the internet – plus I think this would also be a lighter image (as in lower processing and smaller disk footprint) as it should have a bunch of stuff cut out of it.
5. When I install ubuntu, I’m given the option to manage updates with “landscape”, I need to know what that is

So far I know:

1. To update we can use:

sudo apt-get update # Fetches the list of available updates
sudo apt-get upgrade # Strictly upgrades the current packages
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade # Installs updates (new ones)

2.  These can all be chained together as below:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

I don’t know if this is a good idea or not though. That’s another thing to find out (source).