Just curious, does your linux server run X windows? Why or why not? Is there a "best practice" regarding X on servers?

My data server does, but that is incase my main system is busy and I need to burn a dvd, otherwise I will remotely connect and export the display to run the burning software. but if I can't log in remotely I can just go to it turn on the screen, type startx and use it there.

no in fact it doesn't even have a monitor, I just ssh to it.

same here.

I have a 1ghz slave system with no monitor or keyboard, noly ssh, but it is gentoo with nothing but distcc installed (distributed compiling)

So it sounds like it is mainly just a matter of preference. There is no real standard for a server vs. workstation.

on my real server (web and e-mail for 2 businesses) i have no monitor or mouse connected and just ssh to do anything. it is pure CLI zero X installed. i can tell you it makes a HUGE differance on the few times i have to reboot that box. it will reboot way faster then any M$ system ever has on that exact same hardware.

on my little web server here at the house i have Gnome installed because i use it for browsing, gAIM, Y!, XMMS, and a few other things just to play with it. it is also a samba server for my home LAN. that box takes forever to reboot/boot. its on a laptop so it is down more often then a normal server would be as i take it with me when i go out of town.

i don't really think you can make that conclusion based on less than a handful of responses here. if anything, i would guess the opposite, that the so-called "standard" (meaning in this case only the way it is more often done) is for a server not to have X. on most servers there's really no need for it, so why add the bloat and any possible security risks.

synaptical,

I agree. I had been reading quite a bit online that led me to believe that more and more people were using X. Some distros come with some strong tools that make X configuration of certain services pretty attractive. I lean more towards the no X on a server route myself. I was just curious what others were doing

the biggest reason i have X running on my server at the house is i am still a mega newbie to linux. coming from the windows world and all its GUI, it is nice to have the GUI to bounce straight into so i can start to get my hands clean.

i find that i do more and more via CLI though in linux every time i use it. man i so love the power of the CLI in linux, but i enjoy the eye candy of my movies and audio too.

I have SuSE 8.2 running as a file server for a mixed linux/windows home network. My server is a celery 366 with 128 MB ram, no sound card, no mouse, no keyboard, no monitor, 80 gig hd.

I have DHCP, NFS, samba, SSH, blah blah - I SSH in and use YaST2 in ncurses mode. EXTREMELY simple. No need for X. I tried KNOPPIX once and when I ssh'd in, I got full X. I thought this was very cool, but not terribly usefull in this situation. I'll play with it later when I get time to create a diskless network. I think the general feeling is that depending on what your server does, the less needless stuff you bog it down with, the more you can do with limited hardware.

I love turning "broken", "old", "outdated", "useless", hardware into usefull things.

"One man gathers what another man spills"