[Techtalk] Why is life without X important? (was: Re: info)
Maria Blackmore
mariab at cats.meow.at
Sat Sep 7 01:07:06 EST 2002
On 6 Sep 2002, Caitlyn M. Martin wrote:
> To anyone who has been a sysadmin for a long time, yes, it's a real
> issue. If X stops working you need to be able to live at the command
> line.
The key here is to be flexible, you have to be able to work in what might
end up being extremely restricted environments when all you have is a 9600
baud serial connection to one of the only working pieces of equipment.
> > Are you working on the Last Computer On Earth? I
> > always have a connected, functioning PC available. When I visit client
> > sites I bring my trusty notebook. You can't depend on the sick PC to help!
It might not even be a PC :)
> Ah... but I administer many headless Sun boxen, as in no video card.
see? :)
> These are production servers. I inherited one with filesystem
> corruption which died a week after I got here. I had to use that
> notebook you mention to get a console terminal through a serial port.
> So.. no X. Also no network. Just a serial port. No command line=no
> fix.
ick, not a good situation
I've spent too many hours on an FM floor crouched over a 9600 baud serial
console. Sometimes not even provided by a laptop (Nokia Communicator
series rock :)
> Oh, and on many administrative servers we deliberately don't even
> install X. If someone hacks in why make their life easier?
I don't see how X would make a crackers life easier ...
> Also, if the box is, say... a NIS/DHCP/NTP/Loghost server, why do I
> need to use the resources X takes up? Why not leave the memory free
> for real work?
Except that X doesn't take up any resources at all when it's not running
:)
Personally, I have never installed X on a server, and never will, but I
have installed the X libraries alone on occasions where something requires
it, or so that X programs can be run on it to relieve the load from a
local workstation, or simply because the program *has* to run their for
some reason, but I need to see it on my desktop.
> Anyone who does serious systems administration needs to be able to live
> without X. My examples are three of many.
For day to day work, I find X windows to be almost indispensible. It is
simply the only way that I know of arranging that many text environments
in a logical and easy to use fashion and have them alongside the other
work I am doing or looking at. Something else I find almost indispensible
is screen, once again from the point of view of arranging multiple text
environments. I also frequently use screen from within xterm's in X.
All this gives me very great flexibility and makes my life orders of
magnitude easier. I am perfectly capable of doing this without X and/or
screen, but I chose not to whereever I can. Besides, if the situation has
deteriorated to the point where I am using a single command line console,
the chances are that X isn't going to help any. Except when doing network
maintenance at a remote location, and the laptop you have been given does
indeed have a network card as promised, just no network dongle thing, ARG!
Well, if all else fails, my Nokia 9110 will function as a very good (but
very tiny) VT100 serial terminal.
Maria
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