[olug] to X or not to X (on a server)?

[Brian Wiese]

So, my friend and I where having this little discussion about setting up a
debian stable server for basically samba file and print serving.  He says
X should not ever be installed and I say it should.  What do the fellow
gnu/linux admins on the list recommend from experience... which has more
benefit, to install X on a server or to not?  hard drive space is not a
concern.

reasons for X:
- provides productive usable environment for local system administration
(I like to have a couple of terminal windows open and other GUI tools at
hand (a webbrowser perhaps) when administrating a system versus straight
CLI)- will not be used/running normally, standard runlevel = 2
- could easily be uninstalled with 'apt-get remove --purge xserver-common
...'- security updates go along with 'apt-get upgrade' so not much of a
concern (and there are no remote shell logins, just IT staff)

reasons against X:
- another piece of software installed that could be a security
vulnerability- added difficulty for system backups?
- performance benefit by not being installed?

so, to have the option of X or to not on a server, what's best?

peace

  Brian Wiese | bwiese at cotse.com | aim: unolinuxguru
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