[Tech] GUI - or not - on PXE/proxy/NFS server? (how 'bout installed but not launched by default)

[Michael Paoli]

I'd think it best, to best approximately meet both goals:
* Don't need no steenkin' gewey on 'da server
* eases many things to have the server as relatively similar to its build
   targets as feasible (same distribution and architecture, etc.)

Have the server be Lubuntu 14.04.x i386, and with the GUI and its
software installed (per Lubuntu defaults) ... but just configure it
so that by default that GUI stuff doesn't fire up upon (re)boot, but
can be launched manually if/when desired.

That keeps it relatively similar to the build targets, and keeps most of
the overhead of the GUI out of the way - and that's more a concern for
RAM and CPU, and not so much for disk space, as the server, also being
caching proxy and install server, will generally have those software
packages at least somewhere on the host, and should have ample drive
capacity - so storage of the installed GUI stuff isn't really much of
a drive space concern for the server host.

Sound like a (general) plan?  Any objections or other thoughts on that?


> From: "Elizabeth K. Joseph" <lyz at partimus.org>
> Subject: Re: [Tech] Partimus (PXE?) (nearly?) unattended install solution(s?)
> Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 13:14:08 -0700

> Honest question WRT Ubuntu Server vs. Lubuntu and the proposed
> tooling: Is there a reason we need a graphical interface on our
> PXE/proxy/NFS server at all? Lubuntu just brings in the graphical
> components for a desktop, which generally are not appropriate for a
> Linux-based server.