Platform Setup With Ubuntu 14.04 Server Edition

Ubuntu 14.04 Server Edition (Physical Machine With Hardware-Accelerated Graphics)

IMPORTANT: This platform is only officially supported with NVIDIA hardware.

From a clean install Issue the following commands in your terminal window:

#update server packages
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

#install required packages
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg mesa-utils libgl1-mesa-glx libglu1-mesa build-essential unzip xinit

# Download NVIDIA Linux Driver (please select the approrpriate driver for your card, the follow command is for EXAMPLE purposes only)
wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/346.47/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.47.run

# Make the Driver Executable Runnable (please note your diver package may have a different name.  The following command is for EXAMPLE purposes only)
chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.47.run

# Get bus id of the GPU device.
# string will be something similar to: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GTX 650] [10de:0fc6] (rev a1)
#in this case the busId is 1:0:0
lspci -nn | grep VGA

#backup xorg config file
sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

#generate new xorg config file using busId from above
sudo nvidia-xconfig --busid=YOUR_BUS_ID_HERE --use-display-device=None

#locate "Screen" Section and ensure the following sub section information is present
#Virtual     1280 1024
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# start x server
sudo /usr/bin/X :0 &

# set the DISPLAY environment variable
export DISPLAY=:0.0

#update symlink for opengGL library (if necessary for building hoops)
cd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
sudo rm libGL.so && sudo ln -s libGL.so.1 libGL.so

Sample x.org configuration file: xorg-ubuntu-server-sample.conf.