[KLUG Advocacy] To GUI or not to GUI. [was Linux Outpacing Macintosh On Desktops]

[Mike Williams]

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>Sounds very similar to the way I run things.  I'm too much of a gamer to 
>>run anything but Windows on the desktop, but I have a house server that 
>>runs Linux.  It's a much older machine, that I don't think would run 
>>Windows XP, but Linux handles it just fine.  Runs Samba,Apache, DHCP, 
>>DNS, a webcam (when I get USB working again, but that's another story), 
>>and a DDNS client with no problem.  Makes a serious argument for NOT 
>>having a GUI on a server, I think.
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>There is an argument for GUI-less servers, but typically not on large
>servers that neophytes must attend to.  The advantage of Linux is that
>the server can have a GUI,  but it is only running when you need it. 
>xVNC, XDMCP, or just startx.  There are many ways to have your cake and
>eat it too.
>
Ok, I guess a slightly better version of  my statement would be "a 
serious argument against running Windows on a server".  There's no way 
to separate what Windows bloat is related to having the GUI and what is 
just sloppy coding, but I'm sure the GUI uses quite a bit of resources. 
 And of course, you can't turn it off.  While I've given up trying to 
use SuSE as my server OS, I have to admit I did like how their managment 
tool Yast2 handled things.  At launch it would detect the existence or 
absence of XWindows and run different versions of the program.  You 
could even run the server at runlevel 3 and launch Yast2 from a remote 
machine that had an X Server.  I assume that's one of the ways to have 
and eat your cake?  

I have to admit it felt REALLY strange the first time the Yast2 X Window 
came up on my XP box, though.  Viva la Cygwin!