Minimal gui Server install

[NickC]

As there does not appear to be a Fedora Server Edition how do I best install a basic Server type desktop?

Looking for a fully functional gui with all of the tools a Server might require but without the additional crap of games, multimedia, web browser etc. Is there a simple way of doing this or is Fedora not really designed to be used as a Server.

Thanks,
Nick

[bob]

Fedora not really designed to be used as a Server.

Actually, no. With the rapid updates/short time to EOL/possible breakage with 'cutting-edge' packages, it's not recommended although many use it that way very successfully. You'd probably want to look at CentOS, which is a no-cost, no-support Red Hat version as a good option.

[smr54]

As Bob says, and for those reasons, Fedora isn't designed to be a server. (Though it can successfully be used as one.)

As for RHEL (or CentOS, SL, and Oracle), they install without GUI by default. (Using the "Minimal" package group.) Choosing a few others (I haven't tested them all, only web server) will also not install a GUI.

And here, ironically, Fedora offers a better choice of GUIs. If you pick one with RHEL, I think the only choices are Gnome, KDE, and Matchbox. (and probably twm). Gnome and KDE are full blown desktop environments, carrying all the things you mention you don't want. Matchbox might fit the bill. Fedora, on the other hand, has a bunch of less full featured window managers.
Personally, if for whatever reason, I need a GUI, I'll use one of the smaller ones, such as dwm, which needs almost nothing as far as dependencies. I have a little page on it at

http://home.roadrunner.com/~computertaijutsu/dwm.html

(However, as far as I know, it's not in the CentOS repos. There are extra repos individuals or groups do for RHEL, that aren't officially connected, and you can get fluxbox through one of those and openbox through another.)

There is also ClearOS, RHEL based, that has some GUI configuration tools.

http://www.clearfoundation.com/Softw...reenshots.html

(Link is for the screenshots page.)

[AndrewSerk]

I use icewm with Scientific Linux some times (SL is a rock solid RHEL clone like CentOS). Icewm has a small foot print for when a minimalist GUI is needed.

[flyingfsck]

I use the XFCE version of Fedora for servers, then I disable Xorg and access the server over SSH with X forwarding from elsewhere. That way, I can run GUI tools remotely, without actually running Xorg on the server itself. Thus one gets the best of both worlds - an efficient command line server, with all the GUI tools when needed.

The short update cycle doesn't bother me. Once a server is stable, I quit updating it, until one day when I really, really need to change something, or on the odd occasion when a serious security hole is discovered.

[angryfirelord]

Originally Posted by NickC

As there does not appear to be a Fedora Server Edition how do I best install a basic Server type desktop?

Looking for a fully functional gui with all of the tools a Server might require but without the additional crap of games, multimedia, web browser etc. Is there a simple way of doing this or is Fedora not really designed to be used as a Server.

Thanks,
Nick

When it comes to package management, Fedora is more like Debian in that you can use the anaconda installer to build what you want. It's not specialized like Ubuntu where you have a desktop and a server edition. If you want to start small, you can grab the netinst ISO and build your system from there.