Re: Linux distro

Gregory Stark wrote:
> "Merlin Moncure" <mmoncure@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> A server with a GUI sitting on a login screen is wasting zero
>> resources.  Some enterprise management tools are in java which require
>> a GUI to use so there is very little downside to installing X, so IMO
>> a lightweight window manager is appropriate...a full gnome is maybe
>> overkill.  Obviously, you want to turn of the 3d screen saver :-)
>
> That's kind of the crux of it. X sessions tend to do things like run 3d screen
> savers, periodically check cdrom drives for new disks, periodically wake up to
> update load graphs or network graphs, etc.

Spent a happy afternoon some years ago trying to figure out why an NT
server would be fine while I was checking its settings, but would seem
to crawl after half an hour.

Turned out it had some funky 3D screensaver enabled - it'd grind to a
halt, I'd come up, hit the spacebar and not find anything slowing the
system down. Obvious once, I'd got the system monitoring turned on, but
PITA until then.

Moral: If it's not doing something immediately useful, I don't want it
running on my server.

--
   Richard Huxton
   Archonet Ltd