As of Ubuntu 25.04, Ubuntu Desktop installer still doesn’t support a fully custom disk partitioning schema with LUKS/LVM encryption. The workaround is to install Ubuntu Server first (the text-based installer does support all wild combinations), then apt install ubuntu-desktop. However, there are a couple of things to fix afterwards.

netplan/NetworkManager

netplan by default uses systemd.networkd to control network interfaces. Using NetworkManager is much easier though, let’s switch to that (otherwise VPN via NetworkManager will refuse to enable itself).

Edit /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml and add renderer: NetworkManager:

# This is the network config written by 'subiquity'
network:
  ethernets:
    enp0s5:
      dhcp4: true
  version: 2
  renderer: NetworkManager

Boot-up speed

The server boots up way slower than a desktop. Go through Speed up Ubuntu Boot.

Fonts

To fix ugly fonts, install Ubuntu Tweaks. Go to Fonts and make sure the “Interface Text” is “Ubuntu” and not “Ubuntu Sans”.

You may also need to install additional fonts that are not pulled in by ubuntu-desktop meta-package:

• fonts-crosextra-caladea, fonts-crosextra-carlito
• fonts-dejavu
• fonts-linuxlibertine
• fonts-noto-extra, fonts-noto-ui-core
• fonts-sil-gentium