Minimal Ubuntu system on a VMware Horizon View infrastructure.

Goals

• Keep it simple. The goal is not to have the absolute most minimal system. We only remove low-hanging fruit.
• Keep it layered. The base install.sh script has a minimal system with no tools aside from a terminal and a file manager, additional scripts can be built on top of it using the other scripts; see install-polyprog.sh for an example.

Installation instructions

1. Download the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "mini" ISO from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
2. In vSphere Web Client, go to "VMs and Templates" > Right-click the folder you want, "New Virtual Machine" > "New Virtual Machine..."

• Create a new virtual machine
• Name: The name you want
• Location: The location you want
• Storage: The storage you want
• Compatible with: leave unchanged
• Guest OS Family: Linux, Guest OS Version: Ubuntu Linux (64-bit)
• CPU : 2, Memory: 4096 MB, New Hard disk: 16 GB, Video card: 64 MB total video memory; you may need to change the network here
• Finish

3. Still in vSphere, right-click your VM selected > "Launch console"
4. In the remote console:

• VMRC > Manage > Virtual Machine Settings > click on CD/DVD drive 1
  • Check "Connect at power on"
  • Select "Use ISO image file", pick the ISO downloaded in step 1
  • OK
• Power on the VM. The Ubuntu installer now launches.
  • Command line install
  • Pick your language
  • Pick your location
  • Pick your locale
  • Pick your keyboard layout
  • Network autoconfiguration should succeed
  • Pick a hostname
  • Pick your archive mirror country and mirror
  • No proxy
  • User: live
  • Username: live
  • Password: live
  • Confirm password: live
  • Encrypt home directory: No
  • Confirm time zone: Yes (assuming it's correct)
  • Partitioning method: Guided - use entire disk
  • Partition the only disk choice
  • Write the changes to disks: yes
  • No automatic updates
  • Install GRUB to master boot record: Yes
  • System clock to UTC: Yes
  • In the remote console, VMRC > Manage > Virtual Machine Settings > click on CD/DVD drive 1
    • Uncheck both "Connected" and "Connect at power on"
  • In the setup, Continue
  • At the password prompt, login as live
  • sudo passwd root, give a new password
  • exit
  • Login as root
  • userdel -rf live
  • apt install -y --no-install-recommends openssh-server git
  • You may want to edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config to set PermitRootLogin to yes rather than prohibit-password, for convenience, then systemctl restart sshd
  • Copy the Horizon Client archive to /opt/horizon-client.tar.gz
  • Clone the repo, run the install.sh script (or a custom script, such as install-polyprog.sh)