Create a custom Linux workspace

Step 1: Select the Workspaces and Labs perspective then Under Cloud formations find a formation with an Ubuntu icon such as Ubuntu Server 22.04

Step 2: Right click on Ubuntu Server 22.04 then select Clone and name the cloned cloud formation "my-ubuntu”.

Step 3: Click on the new “my-ubuntu“ cloud formation, then click Yes to launch the formation, an Ubuntu icon will show under Sessions, after a few seconds you will see a green tick to the upper left corner of the newly created session.

Step 4: Click on the session to view connectivity information for your machine instance.

Step 5: Connect to your machine instance

From a Windows Machine: Download the PuTTY and the ppk file and run the command line (3) from your Downloads folder. If you want to transfer files from your local machine to the machine instance or vice versa, you can use WinSCP.
From a Linux/Mac Machine: Download the pem file and run the command line (2).

Step 6: Install emacs on the machine instance

sudo apt update
sudo apt install emacs

Verify that emacs has been installed.

emacs --version

Step 7: Create a new machine image from your session: right click the session, select the action “Create Machine Image“, an new icon under images will appear, the spinner next to the image will stop when the image becomes ready, the formation “my-ubuntu“ has been automatically updated to use the new image.

Step 8: Share the “my-ubuntu“ formation with a user or an organization.

Step 9: Now shutdown your machine to stop incurring hourly cloud costs, you will only incur costs for storing the machine image that you have just created.