Can I convert Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 to Server?

NOTE: the following commands are good only to Ubuntu version less/older than 12.04, see Server FAQ, CAUTION: you might end up with a useless system.

Thanks for your answer but I've found you need to add the update line

sudo apt-get update

Also corrected the following line

sudo apt-get -purge remove lightdm

To

sudo apt-get purge lightdm

The full version of the corrected script is below

# update
sudo apt-get update

# install the 'tasksel' package so we can remove the desktop image       
sudo apt-get install tasksel

# remove the desktop image
sudo tasksel remove ubuntu-desktop

# tell tasksel to start the server image setup
sudo tasksel install server

# install the server images
sudo apt-get install linux-server linux-image-server

# remove lightdm
sudo apt-get purge lightdm

# remove all packages no longer required (~400 MB)
sudo apt-get autoremove

The simple answer is yes, but running the commands you are able to install Ubuntu server. Ensure that you make the following changes to the grub configuration file located at /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
( Comment out ‘GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT’ )
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”"
GRUB_TERMINAL=console ( only for PC )

Then you can run

sudo update-grub

The assumption that you need to uninstall your Ubuntu desktop and install Ubuntu server is faulty.

However for a real installation its always better to have a minimal installation containing only what you need.

Ubuntu server is just a minimal Ubuntu install with a specific kernel optimized for serving many clients. Instead of a single user in the case of a desktop. any application / Service you can run on your Ubuntu server you can run on Ubuntu desktop

Checking the installation requirements on moodle

We can see that what is needed is:

• a webserver
• php support for the webserver
• a database