Ubuntu Server graphical interface?

[MJang]

On Sat, 2008-05-03 at 06:34 -0700, MJang wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-05-03 at 08:52 +0100, Paul Elliott wrote:
> > Ante Karamatic wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2 May 2008 14:23:31 -0500
> > > "Dustin Kirkland" <kirkland at canonical.com> wrote:
> > > What's the purpose of fluxbox, openbox, xfce, enlightenment (etc...) on
> > > server? It's not like you have some point and click application for
> > > setting up apache virtual website or psotfix transport tables.
> > 
> > We find increasingly a large number of applications are *requiring* a 
> > full X environment to run the setup procedure. It's not something I 
> > agree with, 
> 
> In many cases, I find that X over SSH works for that purpose (with the X
> server and GUI on some remote client). In addition, fewer packages are
> required on the server to run an X client over SSH - than even a minimal
> GUI on the server - much less a full version of GNOME, KDE, or Xfce. And
> as Paul suggests, a smaller footprint means a smaller attack vector.
> 
> However, if an admin chooses to run a full GUI on Ubuntu Server, I'd
> think he/she would want a - supported - system. While I like
> alternatives like Fluxbox or even Fvwm, I don't think they're in the
> main repository. I suspect at least a substantial minority of Ubuntu
> Server users have some Canonical support subscription.
> 
> > I strongly believe a CLI installer should always be present 
> > for any software that might end up on a server. Unfortunately it's also 
> > something outside of our control.
> 
> Yup, Red Hat has moved away from CLI installers too. 

Let me clarify a bit - by Red Hat CLI installers, I'm referring to tools
like printconf and setup - yes, they are not package installers, but CLI
configuration tools nevertheless. printconf is no longer there, and I
think setup is deprecated.

But I'm also thinking of LVM configuration - at least through RHEL 5, a
custom LVM setup requires the GUI version of Anaconda.

Thanks,
Mike