In this book, we're scripting with Bash, which means we do not need a GUI for our Linux installation. We have chosen to use Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS as the virtual machine operating system, for a number of reasons:
- Ubuntu is considered a beginner-friendly Linux distribution
- The 18.04 is a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, which means it will receive updates until April 2023
- Because an Ubuntu server offers a CLI-only installation, it is easy on system resources and representative of real-life servers
At the time of writing, Ubuntu is maintained by Canonical. You can download the ISO image from https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server. Download the file now, and remember where you save this file, since you'll need it soon.
Should the preceding download link no longer work, you can go to your favorite search engine and search for...
