[olug] to X or not to X (on a server)?

[Dave Hull]

On Fri, 9 May 2003, Brian Wiese wrote:

> So, my friend and I where having this little discussion about setting up a
> debian stable server for basically samba file and print serving.  He says
> X should not ever be installed and I say it should.  What do the fellow
> gnu/linux admins on the list recommend from experience... which has more
> benefit, to install X on a server or to not?  hard drive space is not a
> concern.

If disk space is not a concern, install it. Just because it's installed 
doesn't mean you have to run it, but there may some point in the future that 
you need it for whatever reason.

I went through a situation a month or so ago with RH8 where I installed using 
the "Workstation" install and was using a USB ethernet device which I was able 
to configure using the GUI with no problems.

A few days later, I reinstalled using the "Custom" option and skipped X 
Windows altogether as I don't usually use it at all. I'm using the box for web 
development, not as a desktop box. However, I could not get the USB ethernet 
device to work. I tried searching the vendor's web site as well as spending 
hours pouring over google results for my specific hardware and nothing I tried 
worked.

I had to reinstall X Windows, configure the device using the GUI and then shut 
it down. This was extremely frustrating to me as I'm a command line biggot, 
but I finally had to give up and do it using the GUI, I'm still convinced 
there was a way to make it work using only the command line, but my time was 
better spent reinstalling X and getting it up and running so I could get on to 
some paying work.

Given my experience, I'd recommend installing X, but setting the run level to 
be 3 or whatever your distro uses for multiuser san-GUI, that way X will be 
there when/if you need it, but not providing uneeded services which could make 
the box more vulnerable to exploits, be sure xfs is not running, I believe it 
defaults to running in RH if X is installed.

Good luck.

-- 
Dave Hull
http://insipid.com

If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it
off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe?
		-- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"