this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Ubuntu is primarily Ubuntu-based for example.
…on a headless server. What does the word "headless" mean to you?
Nowadays, servers that are not connected to a monitor, keyboard or mouse are often referred to as headless. Regardless of whether they have a graphical user interface (which can be used with tools such as Guacamole, for example).
I'm not trying to say that this is correct, but simply to point out that the term "headless" is now often interpreted differently.
Fair enough. I felt tempted to reply something like "SSH, that's all the DE you need", but OP specifically says they'll use VNC to access, so that answers it I guess.
That's exactly it. No keyboard, mouse or monitor. Just a laptop connected to it via VNC.
I understand the desire to have some graphic interface, and it's not a bad machine you have so the desktop environment shouldn't take too much CPU and RAM from the server side of it. For my money though — and my significantly worse hardware — I'll prefer to go completely headless and SSH in.
I like doing non-gui stuff and I do that for all the Jellyfin stuff in docker through ssh. But since I want to run steam games on it I'd prefer to have some DE since Steam primarily supports their GUI. I feel like if I don't have a DE I might not be able to access all of Steam's features, I could be wrong though.
Have you considered just having it boot straight into steam with gamescope like the steam deck does?
I would have to agree, I’ve seen headless referred to in both ways. The most common that I’ve seen is what you’re referring to now. Where a server or computer has no keyboard, mouse, and monitor and is primarily controlled over the internet with something like ssh.
Both ways can be seen as “correct” though. Just depends on how you view a “headless” system.
If he wants to use it for gaming over steam link, he'll need a graphical interface. I use a PC this way as well: headless most of the time, although realistically you'll want to use a monitor once in a while to configure steam and figure out gfx issues (and in my case, if it boots it defaults to a 640x480 display, which I need to fix by attaching an actual monitor, I'm sure there's a way around it, but meh).