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Requirements to install Rivolution

This walk-through assumes you have already installed virgin Ubuntu 26.04 or 24.04 server, either on physical hardware, a local VM, or on a cloud VPS.

Tip

Verified on a DigitalOcean Basic droplet (8 vCPU / 16 GB RAM / 320 GB disk) running Ubuntu 24.04 — full build in ~15 minutes, no changes needed to the steps below.

Tip

Also verified on Ubuntu 26.04 arm64 (UTM guest on Apple Silicon) — same ~15 minute build, no changes needed to the steps below. Rivolution builds natively on either x86_64 or arm64; nothing in the build needs cross-compilation or an architecture-specific step.

0. Before you start: OS and desktop setup

Start by installing updates, setting your hostname and timezone.

apt update && apt dist-upgrade -y

Tip

NOTE: System hostname and Rivolution hostname must match.

hostnamectl set-hostname [hostname]

sudo sed -i "s/^127\.0\.1\.1[[:space:]].*/127.0.1.1\t$(hostname)/" /etc/hosts

Tip

This opens the debconf timezone chooser — an interactive menu to pick your region and city instead of setting the zone by name.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

sudo timedatectl set-ntp yes

timedatectl

Set a root password and create a normal user

passwd root

adduser rd

usermod -aG sudo rd

Then, you'll need to install a desktop. After extensive testing on physical hardware, local UTM and Cloud VPS installs, we recommend minimal MATE (no bloat). SSH into your machine and install as root with:

apt update && apt install -y --no-install-recommends ubuntu-mate-core mate-system-monitor 

If this is a Cloud install, add xRDP for easy remote desktop access:

apt install -y xrdp dbus-x11

There's a bug in the current version of xRDP that causes the default session with running GUI applications to crash and then become orphaned — very annoying.

The workaround: disable the accelerated graphics check (this doesn't disable accelerated graphics on a supported system, only the check):

sudo mv /usr/libexec/mate-session-check-accelerated /usr/libexec/mate-session-check-accelerated.disabled

sudo mv /usr/libexec/mate-session-check-accelerated-gl-helper /usr/libexec/mate-session-check-accelerated-gl-helper.disabled

sudo mv /usr/libexec/mate-session-check-accelerated-gles-helper /usr/libexec/mate-session-check-accelerated-gles-helper.disabled

Warning

A separate, unrelated xRDP problem on a fresh Ubuntu 26.04 install specifically: 26.04 defaults to a Wayland session, which xRDP can't drive at all — connecting over RDP gets a black screen or an immediately-crashing session, even with the accelerated-graphics workaround above already applied. Confirmed on a real fresh 26.04 install.

The workaround: force an X11 (not Wayland) MATE session for xRDP specifically, without changing the console/physical-display session at all.

cat << 'EOF' > ~/.xsession
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
unset SESSION_MANAGER
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
mate-session
EOF
chmod +x ~/.xsession

sudo apt install -y xorgxrdp xserver-xorg-core

/etc/xrdp/startwm.sh ends with a default test -x /etc/X11/Xsession && exec /etc/X11/Xsession line — since exec replaces the running process outright, that line has to actually be removed, not just followed by something else, or it wins before your own session command is ever reached:

sudo cp /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh.bak

sudo sed -i '/test -x \/etc\/X11\/Xsession/d;/exec \/bin\/sh \/etc\/X11\/Xsession/d' /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh

sudo tee -a /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh << 'EOF'

unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
unset XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
exec mate-session
EOF

echo "allowed_users=anybody" | sudo tee /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config

sudo systemctl restart xrdp

Tip

If this is a VM/Cloud install running xRDP remote desktop, run the following command to fix Qt/XCB errors for root-run Rivendell tools under xRDP — as of v6.0.0-rc1-4, postinst does this automatically for a .deb install, so this is only needed for a from-source build or an older install predating that fix.

sudo ln -s /home/rd/.Xauthority /root/.Xauthority