Server only OS

Professor_Fate

Professor_Fate

In contrast to another thread around here, is there any known project which has a real interest in being strictly a server only OS? Said project will have ABSOLUTELY NO graphical packages in its repositories, whatsoever. This would be in the project mission statement and suggestions to make exceptions would not be tolerated under any circumstance. I fear the FreeBSD foundation will inevitably cave into the everlasting demands of the distro hoppers wanting to change this into another Ubuntu. Just curious. I think I'd love to support such a project. Yes I know Ubuntu Server, but is there anything else?
 
Why would having graphical packages in repos make any difference?
Could one simply not install them?

Is Ubuntu Server really any different from "regular Ubuntu, without graphical stuff and tuned for server workloads"?
 
I see what you're saying. I just feel there are too many projects that scream "Try us out! You can have a desktop!" and what happens is people take that the wrong way so they try it out and expect it to work like Windows. Of course then they go elsewhere or back to whatever they came from. Frankly, *NIX was never meant for just anyone to use. Redhat completely destroyed this years ago. I want a system dedicated to the elite server administrator. I want a project that the desktop users won't even try to use because they know they won't be getting a desktop.
 
Professor_Fate said:
I want a system dedicated to the elite server administrator. I want a project that the desktop users won't even try to use because they know they won't be getting a desktop.
Click to expand...
Define this. Exactly what do you mean by a desktop? X with TWM so one can have multiple windows doing things in parallel like tail -f on a log file while running mysql cleanup/migration commands in another is very useful.
Is that a desktop?
Graphical tools to do some tasks can be useful, most of them are simply frontends to command line tools.

"elite server administrator"
No offense, but what in Dante's rings does this even mean?
If one uses vi instead of ed are they doomed to be "not elite"?
How about actually scripting things using bash instead of pure sh?
Or is flipping toggle switches on a PDP-11/45 truly elite?

I "get" what you are saying about the Linux Distro hopping where the primary difference between them is "what is installed by default".
That is the appeal of FreeBSD: you do an install and are left with simply a command line environment. You want to browse the web? YOU install the packages needed.

Professor_Fate said:
I want a project that the desktop users won't even try to use because they know they won't be getting a desktop.
Click to expand...
And how does this stance improve anything?
 
Professor_Fate said:
I think I'd love to support such a project.
Click to expand...
Simple.  Push the button, Max!
But I fear this will end the same way any other project of the professor...

Back to being serious, the closest thing to this is DOS. But it lacks other features, like SMP and such. As cracauer@ said, you will fail at power management untill you end up using hardware without any graphical components. Happy hunting for that. Nobody forces you to install Xorg, Wayland or SDL or whatever. Just use text consoles and be happy. Or build your own hardware, that would be a good start.
 
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Completely understood. This post was nowhere near serious and it was more to get a rise out of those who want to turn FreeBSD installer into something it shouldn't be.
 
I use FBSD in console mode for dnsmasq.
FBSD is the engine that drives XigmaNAS, and is administered through a desktop with a browser.

I like this just fine.
Console mode avoids the trillions of machine cycles involved in GUI processing, and also avoids 3rd party driver problems.
It also avoids the endless exploits buried in the complexity of GUI libraries.
What is not to like?
 
Professor_Fate said:
those who want to turn FreeBSD installer into something it shouldn't be
Click to expand...

LOL, if you mean topics such as <https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/89155/>, it's probably fair to say, that's not the direction in which discussions are heading. The FreeBSD Foundation made things clear enough this month.

Jokes aside, you might get something like a server-only installation by cherry-picking from one of the base package collections. <https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:14:amd64/> for example.
 
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