In system monitor, there are numerous processes. Some such as metacity and nautilus are using 12-21 mb memory. Since my server is a 512 mb computer, which services or processes can I safely remove or end ?

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The short answer is "Whatever processes you don't need." Unfortunately, the only one who can answer that is you.

1) Identify a process you think you can live without.
2) Learn what it does.
3) Decide if you can live without it, or if it's worth looking for a leaner alternative.

Metacity is probably your window manager, and nautilus is probably your default file manager, which would be needed for certain desktop functions, so those are probably not good candidates. But I'm willing to bet you don't need that bluetooth app.

There are much lighter weight distros than Ubuntu; if you want to stay with Ubuntu, there a much lighter weight desktops (window manager +) solutions than Gnome ...

What you really need is a much lighter desktop environment, such as LXDE.

GNOME is just not going to run properly with your amount of RAM.

You should remove the ubuntu-desktop package and install the lubuntu-desktop package.

Then you can reboot and select lubuntu as the session in your desktop manager.

To get rid of unnecessary gnome packages

Starting to sound like a broken record here but you'll be needing a lighter desktop, try xfce.

Distribution can be as important as desktop when it comes to memory requirements. For example, Xubuntu with Xfce uses 50% more memory than Debian with Gnome! For a compact, stable Xfce distro you could try Salix or Vector Standard.

Seeing as you're referring to it as a server: get rid of the (ANY) GUI.
That should make a good start.


Cheers,
Tink

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Is that computer only a server? In other words, do you need a desktop running on it?

If that's only a server you should not need X for anything at all, and much less a desktop environment like Gnome. If you also use that computer as a desktop, you should look for a lighter overall solution. With that amount of ram you shouldn't have problems with any distro, as long as you don't use kde, gnome or xfce and you know how to configure the services that are running.

Either way (if you use it dedicated or also as a desktop) what kind of server is it? What is it supposed to serve? Printing, files, web, ssh, ....? Let us know so we can give better advice.

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Unless you are using vino and vinagre together and are using a bluetooth device I would disable the vino server and the bluetooth daemon as they are always starting, also if your not using evolution you could disable the evolution background process.

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servers shouldn't ever need a gui, i would backup my config files, install a server distribution (such as ubuntu server), without the desktop, install webmin if you need a gui type access (webmin is a web based management), then put your config files back into place. the server install should install a base system + whatever daemons (server services) you need + dependencies, guis on server machines eat more resources than necessary for server management and provide security holes at that, which is why you will almost NEVER, if ever, see a desktop of ANY kind installed on a server farm. After that, as suggested, learn what each service does and (if you have installed webmin, go to the system/bootup/shutdown, checkmark the ones that you don't need and click 'disable now and on startup', this way if it breaks something you can usually go back in and turn them back on)

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Wow thank you everyone for your prompt and informative replies. It is a server, I am going to learn how to instal and configure openVPN server on it. That should be its main purpose. But since I am comfortable on windows and new to linux, I thought I could do things easier in gnome. However the last couple of days have been extra ordinary, I have done a lot of tasks and all in terminal, so I think I am going to remove gnome . Thank you for your collective answers. How do I remove gnome and all its updates ?

check to see what services are running

# chkconfig --list

you might do a little web searching to find out what these services do. You probably don't print from your server, or want to run an ftp server, etc... for example:

turn off printing
$ /sbin/chkconfig –level 0123456 cups off

turn off rpc, nfs stuff
$ /sbin/chkconfig –level 0123456 portmap off
$ /sbin/chkconfig –level 0123456 nfslock off
$ /sbin/chkconfig –level 0123456 netfs off

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You don't need to remove Gnome to reduce memory usage; if you change the run level so the system does not start the GUI (sorry, IDK how to do that on Ubuntu but it should be easy enough to find the answer by netsearching) the memory usage will be much reduced. Uninstalling Gnome etc. is only necessary to reduce file system usage.

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Congratulations! Have a look for /etc/inittab and if you have that it should have a line
id:5:initdefault:
Replace the "5" by a "3" and next time you will boot into the CLI. Keep Gnome, just in case. If you ever want it, you can use the command "startx".

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And that will make no difference in Ubuntu (or most other debian based distros).
They consider x a service, and its started in all runlevels from 2 to 5 by default,
and has nothing to do with inittab.



Cheers,
Tink