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   From: ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld (Moe Trin)   
   Newsgroups: alt.os.linux.ubuntu   
   Subject: Re: Strange Question. [new'ish to Linux]   
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   On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.ubuntu, in article   
   , Kardon Coupé wrote:   
      
   >After various searching's, I've come to the conclusion that a server   
   >(which I'm working on at the minute) is more secure without a GUI..   
      
   Long story - lots of gray areas.  Trying to make it simple:   
      
   1. A server is not meant to be a work station. Where I work, NONE of   
   servers even has a monitor or keyboard  (though they do run remote   
   consoles over the serial ports, and there is one dumb terminal and a   
   bunch of ABCDE [5 port] serial switches cascaded to allow console   
   access if needed - see the Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO fir details).    
   That means no users logging in. That means no GUI needed. There is no   
   need to waste CPU cycles drawing pictures that no one can see.   
      
   2. A *nix system (UNIX, not just Linux) can be administered from the   
   command line, because virtually all of the configuration files are just   
   text files. There are a number of GUI administrative "helper" tools,   
   some part of the desktop, some supplied by the distribution, others from   
   third parties), but if you can find out what they are actually doing, you   
   find that they are dinking with these text files.   
      
   3. A disadvantage of the GUI is that in most cases, you have no idea what   
   is actually being done. Moving a slider, or clicking on some radio button   
   does something - but what?  Where this is a problem is   
      
   4. What are you going to do when your favorite GUI won't start because   
   you've done "something".  Talk to an experienced system administrator, and   
   you may hear some horror stories, where the system got so hosed that even   
   the text editor won't run - and then marvel at some of the arcane tricks   
   that were used, such as using 'echo', redirection or shell file globbing   
   to get the system up and running _now_ (because we don't have time to wipe   
   and reinstall).  (Aside - even my workstations _boot_ to a CLI, and my   
   users start the GUI _after_ they log in. In this manner, if something   
   goes pear shaped, I can use a text editor to correct things.)   
      
   5. The other problem of using a GUI and not knowing what is being done   
   is that you often don't know what _else_ is being exposed.  While you can   
   run X applications remotely, this takes extra efforts and requires a   
   compatible server on the "remote" box.  In most cases, this precludes   
   using encrypted traffic over the wire - though there are fairly simple   
   ways around this.   
      
   >So, here is my question, I'm used to a GUI in windows, and all of the apps I   
   >run, use a GUI, one app I use is Emule, which has an equivalent on Amule on   
   >Linux, so, do I need the GUI to run it?   
      
   Can't help there - I don't use it.  If you are trying to run an eMule   
   _server_ on your server, the GUI isn't needed.  And why would there be   
   am eMule client on a server?   
      
   >Apologies if this is a stupid question, and feel free to give a stupid   
   >answer, but I'm just curious to find out, before I finally get my Linux   
   >box fully up and running..   
      
   You may find it useful to look through the documentation that should be   
   on your system. You should find something like 450 HOWTOs and mini-howtos   
   in /usr/share/HOWTO/ (start with the HOWTO-INDEX file)   
      
   -rw-rw-r--    1 gferg    ldp        271987 Jan 17 13:46 HOWTO-INDEX   
      
   You may also find some of the twenty-odd free books from the Linux   
   Documentation Project (http://tldp.org/guides.html for details).   
      
   An expansion on point 1 above - most of our servers started life as user   
   work stations. Then some one says "My secretary needs a Quad Xeon with   
   4 Gigs of RAM to type reports and read email." and we get the cast off   
   model from last year. First thing we do is to yank the Super Whizzo video   
   card (we have a boat load of $12 VGA cards that are overkill on a server)   
   and replace the hard drives (we use SCSI on servers, not IDE/EIDE/ATA).   
   Remember - no user logging in = no need for a video card.   
      
           Old guy   
   --- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5   
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