[OpenIndiana-discuss] Graphical Desktop environment on server

[Nikola M.]

On 12/27/14 04:20 AM, Jim Klimov wrote:
> 26 декабря 2014 г. 13:24:45 CET, Dmitry Kozhinov <dima at desktopfay.com> пишет:
>>
>> Look, even experienced UNIX admin has difficulties with command line
>> (not to offend anyone).
>> Force me to edit config files with vi instead of gedit, and I will go
>> looking for a different job. I believe that new generation of system
>> administrators cannot afford spending half of their lives learning that
>>
>> command line magic spells. This is why OI is popular, and Illumian is
>> not. This is why Linux is popular (it would not if had no GUI at all).
>> And this is why Oracle Solaris has GUI.
>>
>> I understand that there are headless servers and datacenters, but this
>> is different topic.
> Use midnight commander editor then ;)
> Text mode (x11 terminal interaction supported, but not required) and reasonably intuitive interface ;)
> As for X11 on the server, remember that in terms of resources it eats precious ram (well maybe not so precious in modern machines), and in terms of security it is an additional attack surface.

Yeah one can just disable gdm service and be done with it, no harm done 
if Desktop environment is present.
> It makes sense to start it, if needed, on a need-to-use basis and then turn off.
> For me X, especially with vnc, is primarily a way to run many terminals on one display and not lose terminal sessions and whatever diagnostic loops might be running there when i am breaking the network settings, or working remotely and with long-running tasks which i don't want to lose when ssh or vpn breaks, or when my laptop goes to sleep as i ride home while the server keeps doing some work, etc.

You can also use 'screen' for that. It does not require X and you can 
reconnect to it with screen -r on next connection. (you dont' have to 
keep connection to server)
Also windows and appl won't die if X server dies or is killed
Tried loop-back X server, Xvnc to have apps that do not talk to 
graphical hardware at all?
> Though this year i became more of a full-time desktop hipster user (programming and browsing with a gui ide at work), so yes it is useful quite a bit ;)

If you ask me, server without GUI is not a server, looking from smaller 
companies perspective. If nothing else,  it helps pointing uneducated 
customers over phone to do something if needed. And some things are done 
faster on graphical console. So yes.