Server version

[nelson777]

Any plans for a server version ? I use and love Mint for some years now, but unfortunately I still use Ubuntu server when I need a server version because there isn't a Mint Server. Now with Ubuntu attitude regarding snap and stuff I really don't want to continue to use ir for servers (example, my vagrant VMs for development).
But to install Mint on a VM to use as a server with all the GUI stuff is too much.
Anyone knows of an image of Mint without the GUI stuff that I can use as a server ?

[xenopeek]

Linux Mint without a GUI is basically Ubuntu so that's unlikely to happen.

Linux Mint provides a regular package as replacement for the Chromium snap and disables the snap store, to prevent the snap store getting installed through backdoor (like the Chromium package on Ubuntu which installs the snap store and then the Chromium snap), but any server oriented snaps aren't replaced by Linux Mint.

You can disable the snap store on Ubuntu yourself. See the file /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref on your Linux Mint system. If you create the same file on Ubuntu and remove the snapd package you disable the snap store there as well.

[nelson777]

Perfect. Will do that. But just for the learning... if I wanted to get Mint's ISO and remove cinammon, X etc, how could I do that ?

I'm not asking you to explain every step, but could you point me a way to learn how to do that ? I saw that the ISO has a file with a .squashfs there. Mounting this fs, removing the components and save the remaining fs is the way to go ?

I know the copywrite stuff and all, but that would be for my own use only.

[Hoser Rob]

Removing stuff like that is NOT simple. Which is why the usual recommendation for a minimal install is to take something like ubuntu minimal and add what you need instead.

And why don't you just use ubuntu server and turn off snap? I see so much vitriol here aimed at ubuntu over this by people who don't seem to be able to see such a simple thing

[xenopeek]

if I wanted to get Mint's ISO and remove cinammon, X etc, how could I do that ?

If you remove GUI and GUI programs from Linux Mint you've turned it back into Ubuntu, with snap store disabled. That's a lot of work to disable the snap store... Just use Ubuntu Server and disable the snap store if that is what you want. Or use Debian which doesn't use snaps by default. Or another server distro.

[nelson777]

Actually I have already done that. And it worked perfectly.
I asked just for the sake of learning. But anyway, it's working. Thanks.

[legacypowers]

For servers it is my preference and recommendation to go with debian, on the text based install during tasksel you can untick the "Debian Desktop Environment".

nice and easy, and STABLE, which is pretty much what you want on a server.
You can even choose some servers to be installed(well for most of my use cases SSH Server is a *must have*)

[Petermint]

What will the server do? What are the limitations on your server?

I have a ten year old desktop server running LM 20.2 Cinnamon. When I am not logged in, the desktop is not using anything. Even when logged in, if I am not using the desktop, the overhead is trivial. Disks, System Monitor, and other programs can sit there updating the screen without slowing down the server.

All I did was put the system partition on one SSD and the home partition on a different SDD. The big files used by the file server application are on separate magnetic disks due to their size. Databases, etc, are currently scattered around and could be organised better.

I do not use Chrome or any of those monsters on that machine. Firefox with Noscript works ok with just one tab open to read online documentation. I use Update Manager, Timeshift, and Backintime. Backintime only slows things down when I write the first snapshot to a new disk as it has to copy everything.

x11vnc lets me look at the server from other machines without noticeable slowdown on the server. Network speed is the only limitation.

If you have a really tight VM, like many hosting companies provide, I would use the Linux they recommend as it will have the best optimisation.

[legacypowers]

What will the server do? What are the limitations on your server?

I have a ten year old desktop server running LM 20.2 Cinnamon. When I am not logged in, the desktop is not using anything. Even when logged in, if I am not using the desktop, the overhead is trivial. Disks, System Monitor, and other programs can sit there updating the screen without slowing down the server.

Al I did was put the system partition on one SSD and the home partition on a different SDD. The big files used by the file server application are on separate magnetic disks due to their size. Databases, etc, are currently scattered around and could be organised better.

I do not use Chrome or any of those monsters on that machine. Firefox with Noscript works ok with just one tab open to read online documentation. I use Update Manager, Timeshift, and Backintime. Backintime only slows things down when I write the first snapshot to a new disk as it has to copy everything.

x11vnc lets me look at the server from other machines without noticeable slowdown on the server. Network speed is the only limitation.

If you have a really tight VM, like many hosting companies provide, I would use the Linux they recommend as it will have the best optimisation.

i wouldn't say that the overhead is negligible, an idle Mint XFCE install uses 643M of RAM. i have two servers one is my home server which is hosting my pihole,rtorrent+rutorrent,Maria DB Server(MySQL), SSH and SMB sharing is mostly idle now and using at 273MB, another server (nginx, wsgi server, python scripts,Maria DB, SSH Server, it is 815MB, both servers running Debian, both servers 4GB of RAM, my home server is a dual core, and the other server in the example has 4 cores assigned.
On a server i want things to run with a little resources as possible(so when the load starts it have more resources free)

[Petermint]

My file server has 16 GB of memory and runs up a 12 GB file cache when searching for a file by name. If the search is on a client machine through a share, that means 12 GB of network transfer to the client for the search. Using the remote access to the server screen, the search happens on the server, not the client, and is far faster. Doing the same stuff with just command line access would be painful.

I have worked on devices with only 0.5 GB of memory. They would work, for me, as a movie server where you browse a small list of movies but not for my general file server with hundreds of thousands of files. Small differences in your requirements make a huge difference to the server resources needed.

[legacypowers]

Doing the same stuff with just command line access would be painful.

Not at all, if it is a complex task you can set-up a shell script.
One of my customers(which is a franchise of stores) have his central server running and during peak hours MariaDB likes to cosplay as chromium and eat all the ram up, sure by now his infrastructure needs some upgrades, but he can't afford right now.
It came to a point that all the administrative tasks like backups and etc... starts on Sunday 10PM and run up to Tuesday10 AM , all the other week days have others administratives task from 10PM(when all the stores are supposed to be closed) to 10AM(when all the stores are supposed to be open), and this case every single bit(pun intended) of RAM, every clock cycle of the CPU, and every bit of Disk I/O makes a difference, a xorg-server with a full fledge desktop environment is just a big overhead to take, it can be the difference on a query taking long, or some transactions being delayed(which leads to the front-end waiting for the server, and specially on the Point of Sale, customers really dislike waiting on a queue, or looking at the cashier face wondering why the heck his receipt wasn't printed yet

[Petermint]

Ok, difference of opinion. For me, file management without using something like Nemo is a waste of my time. My notebook has just a tiny fraction of my files and has over 300,000 files.

[gugalcrom123]

e copywrite stuff and all, but that would be for my own use only.

Linux Mint allows you to re-compile it under the same license