Start with an Ubuntu Server install. During install I like to select Openssh server, LAMP server, Print Server, and Samba File server. (Samba helps integrate into a Windows network even if you never share) Enter a root password for mysql when it asks. To install mysql alone without LAMP, there are many tutorials online.

After mysql is installed, run:
mysql_secure_installation

Also 'sudo apt-get update', and 'sudo apt-get upgrade' your new server.

And now for Mate...

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/ubuntu saucy main"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install mate-archive-keyring
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-core
sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment
sudo apt-get install system-config-printer-gnome system-config-printer-common
sudo apt-get install gparted gnome-disk-utility firefox gksu git gedit gvfs-backends

I like nullmailer because it's so simple, and mailutils is very handy:
sudo apt-get install nullmailer mailutils

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf   (just change the workgroup name)

To create desktop launchers run the command:
mate-desktop-item-edit ~/Desktop/ --create-new

The above is installed into a virtual machine so I don’t install useful things like smartctl, but I do go on to install xrdp and compile/install bacula, etc. (or whatever is required) Plus the many other small things that need to be done to finish a production server.

Being a 2d gnome desktop, it works very well with xrdp and vncserver. And it seems (so far) that any program that worked on Unity can be installed here.

compdoc