From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 3 16:41:45 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 20015FBB for ; Wed, 3 Jul 2013 16:41:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@qeng-ho.org) Received: from blue.qeng-ho.org (blue.qeng-ho.org [217.155.128.241]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AB70E1850 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 2013 16:41:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: from fileserver.home.qeng-ho.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fileserver.home.qeng-ho.org (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id r63GW2qJ060729; Wed, 3 Jul 2013 17:32:02 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from freebsd@qeng-ho.org) Message-ID: <51D45202.8050902@qeng-ho.org> Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 17:32:02 +0100 From: Arthur Chance User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130615 Thunderbird/17.0.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bill Tillman Subject: Re: X client without X server References: <201307031317.r63DHQqR034336@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk> <1372865169.34030.YahooMailNeo@web165004.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <1372865169.34030.YahooMailNeo@web165004.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 16:41:45 -0000 On 07/03/13 16:26, Bill Tillman wrote: [Vast snip.] > Just my 2¢ worth on this. Sure, one always wants to keep overhead > low. But the days of limited RAM, small hard drives, etc...are long > since behind us. I remember in 1994 when and IT consultant came in > and built a Novell server for us with a whopping 1 GB hard drive. > And back then how we thought with a 1 GB hard drive we'd never run > out of space. Well these days one could easily run out of space with > such a small hard drive. But with today's systems having 2 or 3 TB > drives and GB's of RAM, something as trivial as X-Server should not > be a problem. If you don't need it, don't run it. But to worry about > the space it takes up is kind of a moot point these days. And like > some of the other replies mentioned, xterm may not require it, but > one of xterm's dependencies may. I run Asterisk routinely on my > systems and I'm always amazed at how installing one port requires > no less than 38 other ports to be installed as well. There's another reason beside space for not wanting to install a port unless it's definitely needed, especially on any machine that is world facing - security. If a port is installed but unused it might aid an attacker who gets part way into a system to get further privileges. If it's not installed it definitely can't be used for that. I apply the same principle to the base system on world visible servers - if it's not used and there's a src.conf option to remove it, it gets removed. As the old sysadmin joke goes: "Yes, I'm paranoid. But am I paranoid enough?" -- In the dungeons of Mordor, Sauron bred Orcs with LOLcats to create a new race of servants. Called Uruk-Oh-Hai in the Black Speech, they were cruel and delighted in torturing spelling and grammar. _Lord of the Rings 2.0, the Web Edition_