Plan ahead before you begin installation.
There are several things to consider during the installation of Ubuntu.
The server will need a fixed IP address as this is required by various services and to allow for external access from the internet.
Use manual partitioning – you will need root, swap and home partitions. Root can be about 8GB, swap should be about twice the RAM and the rest for home. Home should be on it's own partition in order to protect user data during rebuilds/re-installs. Manual partitioning is required if you are using RAID (highly recommended!).
Select the services that you will require:
DNS, LAMP SSH and Mail, optionally select Samba and Print services if required.
Use either your logon or ”sysadm” for the first user.