Alan Bell wrote: > I am with the desktop crowd (small as it is) > GDM doesn't consume many resources, if left logged out on the GDM screen > it won't chew memory, processor or open any external ports (neither does > X/Gnome itself by default). When the full desktop is running it will use > extra resources but that is fine. If I am giving a customer their first > Ubuntu server for them to mostly leave well alone I would put the > desktop on it, with Compiz and all the eye candy turned on! I want them > to see that on the rare occasion that they actually log on they have a > better desktop operating system than the Windows XP machine on their desk. > > > Alan. > I would argue that if I'm giving a customer a server, I don't want them playing with it and breaking things!
Maybe that's just me though, one of my contract customers (who I don't support anymore) had a habit of giving out the Domain Administrator password to any staff members who asked for it (despite me arguing against it), and one of the sales staff decided it would be a good idea to login using the domain administrator password to do stuff. Suffice to say I was not impressed sorting out the aftermath. So now I generally just install the server components (and not always Ubuntu, sometimes I install the CentOS based SME Server). However I will be installing an LTSP server in a VM for one client who has recently bought a new Dell server. They want a few desktops and the spare machines they have kicking around are probably a bit too old to run as a reasonable desktop, however with a bit of LTSP magic and some etherboot CDs they can re-use these PCs (and save themselves some money on new PCs in the process). I do occasionally dish out Ubuntu Live CDs to customers too, this way they can play with Ubuntu on their machines, either at work or at home. In fact at one of our recent LUG meetings we have the owner of the cafe we meet at a copy of Ubuntu and demonstrated it on his machine. We've already got him running OpenOffice and his machine runs so badly with Windows XP, so with any luck we can get him to at least dual boot into Ubuntu and maybe then drop XP completely. Rob Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
