I am running openSUSE 11.4 KDE on a server-grade machine. I am using the default 2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop kernel.
uname -r
2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop
If I wanted to use this machine as a server, is there a better kernel I could install from YaST2 software management console? I would like to keep my entire KDE desktop as it is right now and use this machine as a server. Is there an openSUSE 11.4 server-optimized kernel and will my entire KDE environment and applications continue to run fine if I switch to that kernel?
AFAIR the -desktop kernel flavor set some compile-time options that improve desktop UI responsiveness to the detriment of running process performance and IO, so the standard kernel - not desktop - should be (slightly) better for a server. There is no impediment in running a DE (KDE, Gnome, etc.) in either kernel flavor, or any other flavor for the matter. Heavier programs may load a bit slower and memory may be managed somewhat differently, but the desktop is still perfectly usable - if the box is not hogged by server jobs, of course.
For a small or home network server+user machine I’d still use the -desktop flavor, as I doubt the impact on server performance would even be noticed.
Thank you for your quck reply. I installed the ‘default’ kernel (2.6.37.6-0.7-default) and I am testing it, everything seems to be working fine. Would this be the most optimized kernel for an openSUSE server or are there other openSUSE kernels better fine tuned for servers? I don’t mind the performance impact caused by the KDE desktop on my server, my Windows servers do have the Windows GUI too. OTOH, the KDE GUI makes a lot easier for me to manage my Linux servers – as easy as Windows but with the added power of Linux.
Kde itself eats a lot of resources. You don’t have to run X on this machine when you’re not using the GUI. I would boot this machine in runlevel 3. You can start X anytime by switching to runlevel 5 or typing kdm in the console. Another elegant solution would be to have FreeNX running on the server, so you can open a kde session from any machine (including Windows or Mac) without the need to run a X client on the server. It’s a little bit of work to set up though if you’ve never done this before. As for the kernel, both default and desktop will be fine (compared to Windows).