Re: [PLUG] Linux EMC and Headless Systems

[Art Alexion <art.alexion@gmail.com>]

On Nov 9, 2011 8:58 AM, "Rich Freeman" <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net> wrote:

> I think there is also a philisophical difference between Ubuntu and
> Gentoo that may be at play.  When I have tinkered with Ubuntu I've
> noticed that installing a package tends to configure it to run - if
> you apt-get install gdm and reboot you end up with a gdm login screen.
>  On Gentoo this is not the case - if you install GDM and reboot you
> get a text console - you need to explicitly add it to your runlevels
> for sysvinit in order to have it start.  I'm sure Ubuntu has some
> standard way to make things not run, and perhaps getting your system
> to be headless is just as simple as getting gdm to not run.  That
> won't get openoffice off of your hard drive, but it will get X11 out
> of your RAM.

I believe that this is indeed a difference in goals, if not philosophy. Among Ubuntu's goals is to provide a Linux distro which is easy to install and use, even if you are not very technically oriented. In many ways, they have succeeded, but the 6 month release schedule has also led to serious bugs that only the tech savvy can fix.

As I tinker with Apple and Microsoft products, I am constantly reminded that the reason I love Linux is that I have these kinds of choices.

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