Hi Guys,

I have Fedora 9 running on Microsoft's Virtual Server (doesn't support Linux as thoroughly as Microsoft claims - surprised?). I don't have access to the physical machine and I only want access to my Fedora 9 installation via SSH. The server will be run as a local web development server, and possibly a file server. Thus, I don't need X-Server running at all.

How do I go about installing Fedora 9 without installing X-Server, i.e - the most bare bones installation I can. I am comfortable on the command line. Am I using the wrong distribution?

Any ideas?

I would guess if you use a standard install you can select packages and deselect everything you don't want. If you're comfortable with Fedora already, you may try CentOS which is a free clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The install options probably are more straightforward for no gui installs since Fedora is aimed more at the desktop.

Personally, I'm more comfortable with Debian. I can download a 140MB netinstall CD and deselect everything. Just install a standard system. Then I do aptitude update and aptitude install packagename (like apache2, etc). If you go this route, I would install Lenny since it's going to change to stable soon. Just make sure your /etc/apt/sources.list points to lenny, not "testing"... Here's a good link to a Debian howto from the command line.

During install I have never find out with Fedora how you can deselect programs , but after install just one command
is enough to get rid of the GUI namely yum remove GUIś name you need to su to do so

You can eliminate running the GUI by changing the default run level. You change the run level by editing /etc/inittab. In inittab change

id:5:initdefault:

to

id:3:initdefault:

and your system will come up as multi-user, command line.

See:

man inittab

-----------------
Steve Stites

Thanks for the replies guys!

pljvaldez: I think CentOS is a great move for me (mainly because the ISP that hosts all our websites use it). So I will look into that at a later stage.

For now though, I think going with Steves advice is best, I'll change the default run level - at least then I know that I have everything installed as needed and I don't have to mess around with the default package selections.

Thanks to all again!