AS reported in another thread, my graphics card on one of my 2 machines is now officially dead and will be removed and ultimately replaced sometime past next payday or so. In the meantime, I am going to move the monitor closer to the one I am using right now, and connect it to this machine. Woohaa - gimme dual head - here I come!
I need to reconfigure the "problem machine" so that it will work as a server without a graphics card. I need to be able to boot it safely without going through some graphical login screen such as we get on the standard Kubuntu desktop client.
The "problem machine" will serve me with files and applications, I assume it can respond to ssh -X server calls even without a graphics card? I already tested yesterday, the communication between the two machines is so good I can even use the "problem machine" to play films through the ssh X-forwarding (sound wasn't forwarded, though).
What would be the best approach to temporarily reconfigure the "problem machine" as an application and file server?
Things I would like to manage on the "problem comp"
- "always up " services such as ktorrent dishing out more kubuntu power to the people, and irc.
- my mail, because it sits on those harddisks and as this is temporary, I can't be arsed to move it to another computer unless really necessary.
- DigiKam database, for the same reasons as above. Most of my "important" files here are my photos. Everything else is recreated a lot easier....
- my music collection...althoug I think I will have to play them on the other computer as sound does not follow in the X-forwarding (?)
- Media Players with 32 bit windows codecs support...as that will never be available on this 64 bit machine, before M$ release the 64 bit version of the 32 bit codecs?
It would be preferable to avoid logging into the server for every task that need to be started; opening up a shell and typing ssh -X server; application and then needing to type in the password again every time, does not sound like ease of use nor does it really make anything more secure. It should be possible to configure this so that I will not always be asked to identify? I have same username and UID's on both machines (different passwords of course) but should I run a service such as NIS to have a common password domain? Are there alternatives to NIS which should be considered (read: what is ldap? better for this use?)
I need to reconfigure the "problem machine" so that it will work as a server without a graphics card. I need to be able to boot it safely without going through some graphical login screen such as we get on the standard Kubuntu desktop client.
The "problem machine" will serve me with files and applications, I assume it can respond to ssh -X server calls even without a graphics card? I already tested yesterday, the communication between the two machines is so good I can even use the "problem machine" to play films through the ssh X-forwarding (sound wasn't forwarded, though).
What would be the best approach to temporarily reconfigure the "problem machine" as an application and file server?
Things I would like to manage on the "problem comp"
- "always up " services such as ktorrent dishing out more kubuntu power to the people, and irc.
- my mail, because it sits on those harddisks and as this is temporary, I can't be arsed to move it to another computer unless really necessary.
- DigiKam database, for the same reasons as above. Most of my "important" files here are my photos. Everything else is recreated a lot easier....
- my music collection...althoug I think I will have to play them on the other computer as sound does not follow in the X-forwarding (?)
- Media Players with 32 bit windows codecs support...as that will never be available on this 64 bit machine, before M$ release the 64 bit version of the 32 bit codecs?
It would be preferable to avoid logging into the server for every task that need to be started; opening up a shell and typing ssh -X server; application and then needing to type in the password again every time, does not sound like ease of use nor does it really make anything more secure. It should be possible to configure this so that I will not always be asked to identify? I have same username and UID's on both machines (different passwords of course) but should I run a service such as NIS to have a common password domain? Are there alternatives to NIS which should be considered (read: what is ldap? better for this use?)