[OpenIndiana-discuss] killing graphical login

[Jim Klimov]

2012-09-27 1:44, låzaro wrote:
> Sorry the thread hacking but... could be used the Desktop version for a
> text only install in a server enviroment?

Yes, the server installer ISO/USB image is a subset of the desktop
image (possibly with some other tweaks in the software configuration,
like the default method of networking setup - the NWAM wizards for
the desktop and static files for text-based server installer).

In terms of software, you can turn a server installation into the
desktop one by adding some packages over internet (IIRC, to ease
the process, there should be a special meta-package which has needed
package sets as dependencies), and you can turn a desktop into
server by disabling unneeded services and/or removing these packages.

In practice for a server with unspecified workload I'd suggest
installing the desktop variant, disable the interactive GUI (by
"svcadm disable gdm") and install VNC-server bound to localhost
in case you'd need some graphical work - and tunnel them over SSH.
At the very least, if your network connectivity can occasionally
disappear, the VNC terminals on the server continue working while
SSH sessions would be broken and work can get lost (you can also
use "screen" to make SSH text sessions resilient to network drops).
Also, some software can need the graphics libraries i.e. for image
manipulation, even if it doesn't do interactive GUI.

HTH,
//Jim Klimov