Syncopated's questions

What are the actual meaningful differences between Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop, particularly for 20.04? I know people say among other things that Desktop has GUI by default and Server has text, and Desktop has end-user apps that Server doesn't, but these differences don't really matter as Desktop can be installed and configured to be the same way -- e.g. "systemctl set-default multi-user.target" and removing unwanted packages after minimal install.

What are the intrinsic differences between the two that cannot be addressed by configuring the machine with a reasonable amount of effort but could make Server intrinsically a better or worse choice (e.g. better performance or easier maintenance) than Desktop for server- and compute- centric usage, if any?

On my Ubuntu Eoan laptop, I find that systemd-resolved sporadically inexplicably fails to respond to local DNS requests to 127.0.0.53 even when requests to my router's DNS server still work, so I want to keep things simple and cut off systemd-resolved.

(Specifically, after the WiFi disconnects and then reconnects, the local DNS server at 127.0.0.53 provided by systemd-resolved in /etc/resolv.conf stops responding to requests until I manually 'systemctl restart systemd-resolved'.)

I'm using a Wireless network with DHCP with wicd, normally controlling it with wicd-gtk. How can I configure my system properly so that under a WiFi connection with DHCP, I'll use the DNS server assigned by the DHCP? I've disabled the systemd-resolved service but that seemed insufficient. That just left behind a /etc/resolv.conf symlinked to a non-existent /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf. Even if I remove that, a /etc/resolv.conf file gets created by NetworkManager pointing to the useless 127.0.0.53 when I reconnect to the WiFi. Even if I remove that file and stop NetworkManager and then reconnect to the WiFi, I get no /etc/resolv.conf, so DNS lookups have no server to use.

How can I configure wicd or my system's network settings properly to do the normal setting up of the DNS server in addition to the setting up of the local IP address, subnet and gateway under the WiFi DHCP? I normally use wicd-gtk to manually select a WiFi to connect to. Also, there's no problem with the WiFi, as other devices have no problems and previously with systemd-resolved running it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't work. Also, I'm trying to avoid using NetworkManager because I'm using xmonad without a system-tray so I can't easily use the NetworkManager system-tray GUI.

One thing that looks quite very suspicious to me in the system log after I connected to the WiFi is that systemd-resolved did not restart after dhclient got a DHCPACK. systemd-resolved got started just before that when presumably the network was still not ready. So, it seems that /etc/dhcp/dhclient-enter-hooks.d/resolved is not working as intended.

EDIT: It seems that by disabling systemd-resolved, I have run into a known bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd/+bug/1745463

As in the title. Neither dpkg -S /usr/bin/less nor apt-file search /usr/bin/less produces anything useful.

Does it mean that there's a bug or that less really doesn't come from any package?

(In case you're wondering why I need to know the answer, I find that the less is an old version 487 instead of 530 that has a feature I want.)

$ which less
/usr/bin/less
$ dpkg -S /usr/bin/less
dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern /usr/bin/less
$ apt-file search /usr/bin/less
colorized-logs: /usr/bin/lesstty
libcss-lessp-perl: /usr/bin/lessp
node-less: /usr/bin/lessc

My computer has an Ethernet port but no WiFi devices. I just did a new installation with ubuntu-19.04-server-amd64.iso followed by apt install ubuntu-desktop.

Now, I have a working Internet connection as witnessed by ifconfig, the web browser and ping, and in the system tray on the upper right corner, I have a "Wired Unmanaged" item that has a "Connect" subitem that seems to do nothing.

The problem is that Ubuntu insists that I have "no Internet connection". Under "settings->online accounts", it says "No internet connection -- connect to set up new online accounts". Similarly, "Sofware & Updates->Livepatch" says "Livepatch requires an Internet connection". There are other places where Ubuntu behaves as if there is no Internet connection.

How do I make Ubuntu stop insisting that I have no Internet connection when I have it? There are webpages that suggests editing /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf to for managed=true, but that didn't help at all even with rebooting.

1:42 ~$ sudo systemctl status network-manager
● NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2019-07-02 21:27:07 CST; 16min ago
     Docs: man:NetworkManager(8)
 Main PID: 1323 (NetworkManager)
    Tasks: 3 (limit: 4915)
   Memory: 13.2M
   CGroup: /system.slice/NetworkManager.service
           └─1323 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon

Jul 02 21:27:07 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074027.4807] manager: (enp3s0): new Ethernet device (/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/2)
Jul 02 21:27:07 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074027.4854] modem-manager: ModemManager available
Jul 02 21:27:07 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074027.4854] bluez: use BlueZ version 5
Jul 02 21:27:07 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074027.4857] manager: startup complete
Jul 02 21:27:07 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074027.4869] bluez5: NAP: added interface 00:1A:7D:DA:71:11
Jul 02 21:27:09 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074029.0652] device (enp3s0): carrier: link connected
Jul 02 21:27:21 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074041.2143] agent-manager: req[0x560f1faf8a60, :1.359/org.gnome.Shell.NetworkAgent/2000]: agent registered
Jul 02 21:34:00 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074440.5954] keyfile: add connection /run/NetworkManager/system-connections/Wired connection 1.nmconnection (9dcf7c66-f531-44ff-8a2e-4d08eb4acfe3,"Wired connection 1")
Jul 02 21:34:00 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: <info>  [1562074440.5964] audit: op="connection-add-activate" pid=2010 uid=2000 result="fail" reason="Connection 'Wired connection 1' is not available on device enp3s0 because device is strictly unmanaged"
Jul 02 21:34:00 frodo NetworkManager[1323]: ((src/settings/nm-settings.c:504)): assertion '<dropped>' failed