Re: oh no something is definitly wrong adieu debian.
Hi Gary,
Thanx you for getting back to the original post :) while I admit I did
learn a bit of history about distro, display manager, etc... :)
Why I am using GUI on servers? Well because I am a big lazy man,
having done all my career on unix so far, and I don't have time to
learn all the CUI api's to handle a server. Basic things as network
setting, disc partitioning, guest setup, firewall setting (for distro
with firewall) etc, I don't have time, to learn it all. Now you made a
point if I am a fan of gparted I better have it export DISPLAY. I
approached linux via my laptop, and got acustomed by GUI click click
sys admin, quick install, quick setup.
Yet I dont need all the 'things' that come up with GUI DM like for
instance I never cared to get libreoffice, and I never could remove it
without removing all GNOME, I accepted it :)
So basically I open a vnc server session on the server that is located
in a computer room, I run vbox there and do all the guest admin from
click click because I am ignorant and can't do the vboxmanage things
as quick as click to get my guest setup. I got to say here that I am
not an IT manager, and I don't have thousand of server with thousand
of guest to manage, just enough guest to get my software developed on
all sort of linux/distro (rh, suse, ubuntu, debian) and some other
other bsd, solaris.
You can derive that for any other kind of sys admin that I don't know
how to do without GUI.
But that's little work, then come my development that I host on the
server too, I got my emacs (many win), and debugger session...
Occasionally I need a package, again too ignorant and too lazy to
learn, so I run synaptic, dunno how it work but I give a keyword I
find the package, no clu how to do this in CUI mode, some other time I
need to browse the net and DL a software, or obtain a git ref, I then
have a browser runing on the server, etc... In many case to me, not
having a GUI on the server is a pain, though I admit, all can be done
CUI.
Then you speak about having the remote machine doing what it is best
at, i.e doing GUI, the answer is that I have many spot where I can
work (design kernel code), my office, my place, my girlfriend place,
and the place I visit, family, vacation, etc... For all this I adopted
a simple scheme, vpn+vnc, meaning my working place is just a
thinclient for the sedentary spot (office, home) and engineering
worksation laptop for travling (big display).The thinclient is very
capable, I can get up to 4 big display on it at the moment I use only
3, so basically 1 display is my server where I do SW dev, another
display is used the corporate PC (that I hosted as a guest on 1
server), and another display I use for various things like reading
more .pdf doccos..
Now my work cycle is simple say I'm at the office with my thinclient 3
display, time is up, got to run home, the procedure is simple just
switch off my thinclient, in a middle of a C statement I was typing,
the emacs autosave will do its jobs. At home, boot home my thinclient
(2 display this one), and resume instantly my work exactly where I
left it, could be a single steping in a debug session.
I got fly to my family place no problemo got my worstation laptop,
vpn+vnc resume were I left andafter a 10h trip can resume my emacs or
gdb where I left it.
Got my laptop stollen, no big deal this is just material things, no IP
on the the laptop just a minimal linux a vnc client a vpn client and
that's all nothing to stoll here no information lost either, the 300Gb
or so disc I got there was never used, only the couple of Gb needed by
a simple debian desktop.
So you see each one develop its own way to work, I never have to deal
with long time to boot up, all my nodes (phys or virt) are in the
computer room always on, I just VNC to them and I work.
So now to be more precise, I should have not say that I got debian on
servers, you are right, my 'machine' are used as desktop, though some
of my desktop are 'server' in the HW sense, it is not laptop, it is
not tower desktop, but rackable machine with 32 processors, and 64Gb
main memory so what I am inclined to call tht a server, while I use
this as desktop I agry.
No on the purist edge, I could still manage this server (well two of
them because one can replace the other in case of HW failure ) I could
have managed this two node as pure server with ssh only access to them
and have my SW dev done in a guest that would display its screens via
vnc, but as I said, admin those are not my prefered task the day, and
it is only a small number of server (my 2 main, plus a couple of other
crash'n'burn)
So when I decided to move to wheezy, after a couple of try in guest
that were running ok, I did select the less used server, (my secondary
backup) took a deep breth and did the bungee jump.
It went sooth as I said, so the work was cleanly prepared on the
debian distro side. So as usual I appreciated and measured the job
done for this by the comunity.
But then the bug shows up, something in the loop to get a simple
vncserver running with gnome DM just crashed with this 'oh no'
message.
Fixing this is way beyond my knowledge, it can come from all sort of
things, X, dbus, file prot, left over, who knows, I did try all sort
of thing installing packages, starting the vnc server various way,
removing /tmp files adding new user account, well all sort of thing
sugested on google... to non avail.
Well I need to move forward and get a more recent linux as squeeze, I
did try ubuntu and it worked, same vnc4server, got some cycle about
how to eliminate unity, how to 'fallback' gnome and get my desktop
customised my way. So as some said, watever works, I moved, but after
all this years on debian, I felt a bit sad that it can be destroyed by
the gnome3 chain (again no finger pointing, dunno what wrong there,
but the complexity is so that it never has been fixed) go no option
but leave, because I can't stay on squeeze (for verious reasons), and
I can't miss vnc4server running. So I move, not too far though I still
have my apt-get on ubuntu.
If someone come with a fix for the trivial test case, fresh wheezy
install vnc4server (no need to try anohter one, it as proved to be
good on ubuntu), and from a vnclient do a simple top panel properties,
background tab select solid color then slide style it is enough to
definitly crahs you server to never be able to restart it.
I could have survived if I got a crash, but it would restart, I would
simply take great care not step to the background color again, but now
it is unsable with destroying user account as work around that is a
bit extreem.
The backgroud color is one things, but then I lost
my confidence in the solution, meaning, now I dunno what other action
on the vncserver could lead to the same crash, and since I run vbox
with all my 20 guest there, crashing the session mean crashing 20
guest. Ok if run from the server from ssh nothing of this would happen.
So to me the vncserver (that is not at fault because proved to work on
ubuntu) is critical and what's wrong is not workable around, beside
staying on squeeze :)
Thanx for your answer :)
Cheers,
Phi
PS : Gary, sory for teh repost to you mailbox, I replied to you
instead of the list, this GUI gmail I don't masterise either :) well
there I could use mailx :)
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