I have a PAAS stack where RHEL 6.6 machines are provided to us. We connect using putty and these machines does not have any desktop installed.

By default i go in and install gnome desktop into these machines by

yum install gdm
yum install tigervnc
yum install gnome*
yum install vmware*

This works but the desktop is old fashioned and is not a modern one.
It has GTK 2 installed and does not provide all the good features of a modern desktop.

What is the most advanced desktop which can be installed on RHEL 6.6 and how to do that ?

Welcome to LQ!

As a user of the corresponding version of CentOS, I'm not sure what features you're missing!

A lot of things in Red Hat are integrated with Gnome (the configuration tools are not as good with KDE, for example) and replacing Gnome 2 with Gnome 3 may have undesirable side effects. There will certainly be a problem that the libraries you have won't support it and the libraries it wants will be incompatible with other programs you have. The whole point of enterprise-class distros is that they are conservative: that's why they're reliable.

Can I just add that RHEL 6 dates back to 2011. And was superseded last year by RHEL 7. It may be that the "good features of a modern desktop" are more likely to be found in the newer release.

I do note though that you are locked into RHEL 6

I am more concerned about the look and feel of Gnome 2 , I am not very much concerned about reliability. Since these are PAAS stack i can play around with them until i can reach a good desktop and then start installing my required software and libraries.

With that in mind if there is a fresh machine with rhel 6.6 min install , Is it possible to install Gnome 3 or higher versions of Unity/Mate/Xfce/Pantheon etc , anything good which looks and feels as close to a today's desktop.

Or can what is required to Upgrade from RHEL 6.6 to RHEL 7 + GNOME 3 . I have root password and hence would be able to install anything.

there is a REASON!!! you use redhat !!!
it is so well tested that it dose NOT crash

as a result it uses PATCHED ( for security) older and very WELL tested code

6.0 shipped with Gnome2
6.11 will STILL!!! have gnome2 in 5 years

if you want Gnome3 use Fedora 23 or a older version of gnome 3 in RHEL 7.1


BUT

you can always build the Enlightenment Desktop on RHEL 6.7
or 6.6 is you are paying redhat for extra security updates for locking it at 6.6

https://www.enlightenment.org/

Hello.

Did you by any chance took a look at https://access.redhat.com/solutions/637583 ?

It describes the process of upgrading to RHEL7 from RHEL6.

I used both RHEL6 and 7 and personally prefer the look and feel of Gnome 2 (nostalgia maybe). Most of my work is done via SSH so I don't really interact with the desktop (nor do I wish it).

Hope that link helps.

Regards.

Thanks Thras0 - I will give this a try.

Are these servers' production servers or used for a business?

If so, then you work with what you get. I typically work from the CLI and if I have to work with the GUI, then Gnome seems to do the trick or what needs to be done.

If you want to trick out your desktop, that best left to your own pc/laptop, or something you setup in development environment.

Basically if you want a more modern desktop, then look to RHEL 7 or Centos 7. Centos 6 uses the old classic gnome. You can install KDE on it, but it's an older version and it is very buggy and just plain sucks. My work computer that I'm typing this on right now is a Centos6 machine using classic gnome (version2) and perfectly happy with it. It's stable, fast, customizable, and JUST WORKS. You can change themese, icons, colors, change the location to taskbars add launchers, etc... what else do you want???