Fortunately, the solution is simple.

You just need to run sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup and follow the on-screen prompts. You would usually use the arrow keys to traverse the menus, but that isn’t exactly possible, is it? Pressing the first letter of the option you’re looking for until it cycles up and is selected works fine, though. (Apple Laptop, USA-style layout, etc.) The full instructions on what you should pick for MacBooks are available here.

Now, moving in and out of the VM window is a little bit annoying, so I installed an SSH server.

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Easy enough. Now you can SSH into the server from a native Terminal session, which is easier to Command+Tab in and out of, and you can make use of the clipboard. Not being able to copy and paste sure is limiting.

Now you only have one final obstacle standing between you and easily connecting to the server. Whether you’re using SSH or accessing a web page being served by the VM, you need to figure out the local IP address of the VM on the network and input that. Or you can set up ZeroConf, which lets other machines on the network automagically find the VM when you call it by name. Instead of addressing it as 192.168.0.255, you could use Ubuntu.local. (Very handy when you’re running game servers on your LAN.)

The following command will install the required packages to enable ZeroConf on the VM.

sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon avahi-discover avahi-utils libnss-mdns service-discovery-applet mdns-scan

Now you can reach the VM at thehostname.local, which is considerably easier than figuring out what IP your router has assigned it and pasting it in whenever you need it.

The folks over at NETTUTS must be psychic or something. They seemed to know that I was semi-actively looknig for information on this topic, since they recently published a tutorial on setting up an Ubuntu webserver. I had a “well that’s cool” moment when I saw it in my feed reader.

All great websites have a great server behind them. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to set up a dedicated web server (with Apache, MySQL, and PHP) using that old computer you have lying around the house and some free software.

Link: How to Setup a Dedicated Web Server for Free

The article shows you step-by-step, with a screenshot for every step, how to install Ubuntu and get it running Apache with PHP and MySQL. It’s long, but easy to follow and very informative.

If you’re like me, you’ll want to learn even more than one post can provide. So here are a few other guides and such worth taking a peek at.

• Ubuntu Server Guide
• Installing [and Configuring] Apache Tutorial
• Ubuntu Server Resources and Documentation
• Linux Commands for Beginning Server Administators