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Are you asking with respect to Hardware Configuration of a system ?
If yes, It is the server administrator who decides the hardware based on the load expected on the server.
There are commands to find out your hardware configuration and usage like
Code:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
free
vmstat
top
If you are asking with respect to Operating system,then I hope there no such command which differentiates between Server and Desktop Operating system. It it the vendor who targets the Operating system for Desktops/servers.
For example Ubuntu/Fedora are targeted for Desktops, CentOS/RHEL are targeted for servers.
If you want to use it as a server, then you can run the appropriate services on top of it.
If you want to use it as a web server, you use Apache.
If you want to use it as a file & print server to Windows clients, you use Samba and CUPS.
If you want to use it as a desktop, then you should disable all of the services you don't need.
Distributions can be targeted towards specific applications, with their standard package sets... but, as an example, you can quickly and easily turn a stock desktop Ubuntu setup into an FTP server.
"Servers" tend not to run a GUI, and tend to have ftp, nfs, apache, php, mysql, ssh etc. installed. They tend to be situated in cold, awkward to reach locations.
"Desktops" do tend to run a GUI, and don't tend to have apache installed. They are usually situated somewhere convenient for a human to reach and physically use them.
But he distinction is what you make of it.
It doesn't matter anyway, as you can have a "Desktop" that is also a "Server" and the other way around.
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