Step by step, with screenshots: an Ubuntu server from a cloud image, or Ubuntu Desktop installed automatically.

The same distro, two starting points

Velo Workspaces offers Ubuntu 26.04 and 24.04 as both Server and Desktop installers, and both can install themselves. From the moment they boot they're different: Server gives you a text console with nothing graphical running; Desktop boots into a full GNOME session. The Ubuntu cloud image is Server-shaped too. Other distributions follow the same split (Fedora Server and Fedora Workstation, NixOS's minimal and graphical ISOs), but Ubuntu is the easiest place to compare the two from one source.

Headless plus SSH covers more than you'd think

People coming from a desktop-first habit are often surprised how much development work never needs a GUI inside the guest. VS Code's Remote - SSH into a headless Linux guest gives you the full editor, with syntax highlighting, a debugger and extensions, while the guest runs nothing but an SSH server and your tools. The window you're looking at runs on the Mac; the guest is just where the code and the shell live. The workspace's Access tab gives you the ~/.ssh/config block for VS Code, a copyable ssh command for Terminal, and with Pro, a built-in terminal. Most CI work, server development and command-line testing looks the same; the QA and DevOps workflow shows the pattern.

When you need the desktop

The dividing line is narrower than it feels. You need a desktop session inside the guest when the thing you're testing or building is the graphical experience: a desktop application, visual browser testing where the rendering matters, anything that needs a real window manager and compositor to behave the way a user's session would. Editing code remotely doesn't need it. Checking how a GUI looks and behaves does.

The graphics are the same either way

Choosing Desktop doesn't buy better graphics. A Linux guest's display is paravirtualized through virtio-gpu whichever image you picked, as the device inventory post covers: fine for a desktop and basic composition, but not the Metal-accelerated pipeline a macOS guest gets, and no GPU compute. Desktop gives you a session to work in; it doesn't change the display device.

The practical default

Start with Server, and with the cloud image if you want it running in a minute, unless you already know you need a GUI. It's lighter, and remote editing covers most development work. Reach for Desktop when the task means seeing and using a windowed application inside the VM.

Related reading: Ubuntu on Apple Silicon, an editing workflow that's entirely over SSH, and the graphics device inventory this post builds on. Or download Velo Workspaces and try it yourself.