(Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place; I am new to these fourms)
What is a good linux distro to use?
And, would the server run if I didn't install the gui, just the command shell?
If possible, please post a distro that doesn't require a gui.
I run my server on Arch Linux. If you are new to Linux in general, this is probably not the best choice for you. However, if you do have Linux experience, then the extreme lightness of the system, combined with the overall freshness of the packages, is very good for server hosting.
(Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place; I am new to these fourms)
What is a good linux distro to use?
And, would the server run if I didn't install the gui, just the command shell?
If possible, please post a distro that doesn't require a gui.
I would highly suggest using this prepackaged Minecraft Linux OS called MineOS CRUX. Located on these forums here.
Very easy to set up. You will have a Linux OS and a MC server up and going in under 20min. It is very very very easy for someone who doesn't know Linux especially Linux in a non visual (GUI) environment. On top of that it has many pre-installed features like automatic backups that you can then easily Restore to. All the functions of the MineCraft server are usable through a web interface. This means you don't have to do any Linux command line commands once the OS is installed. It also has ftp access via sftp and you can use Free FileZila for this. This means you can easily transfer files in and out of your server in a visual (GUI) environment from any computer that isn't the server. The other nice thing about this Distro is that it one of the smallest Distros out on the market and uses very little system resources. You can find further information on this in the link I gave you above.
Are you setting one up to run from home? Are you just going to be port forwarding the minecraft port to your internal server or are you exposing this machine to the outside world (public IP)? Answers to these can help to narrow down how much effort is going to be involved in setting this up sanely and safely, which helps to determine how much real interaction you are going to have with the OS during the setup process. The less complicated (and more private) the server is the less interaction and the fewer OS goodies you need to help setup and maintain the server that minecraft is running on. As for minecraft itself, as long as JAVA is installed all of the distros are pretty much the same.
(Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place; I am new to these fourms)
What is a good linux distro to use?
And, would the server run if I didn't install the gui, just the command shell?
If possible, please post a distro that doesn't require a gui.
The majority of linux distros are extremely similar. Linux in general doesn't rely on GUIs like Windows does, so any distro will be fine. I would suggest Debian / Ubuntu since I prefer apt-get over yum.
This, Debian is what I use on everything and it is by far my personal favorite.
first off, my distro of choice is fedora or centos for almost all applications *waits for the flame war*
my main two reasons:
* i like yum + rpm fusion way better than apt-get, especially via CLI
* my other main reason, is that fedora leaves the file system the way it was intended. my biggest gripe about Ubuntu (and derivatives), is that they like to get their dirty hands into everything like a little kid.. partially because of that reason, they arent very good at giving back to the general linux community, only useful to another distro based off ubuntu, they arent even much help to other debian distros, which is kinda sad.
so...
just a few things to take into consideration:
* do you get to physically be at the computer, while you install the distro?
* are you looking for an extremely light-weight distro?
* are you looking for an easily configurable distro?
* how much experience do you have with linux commands/etc?'
* how much experience do you have with command line switches/etc?
if you answer those questions, others and myself can better point you toward a distro that fits.
whatever fits you best, is whats best.
almost forgot, if its not gonna be at your house (which is somewhat common, depending) you're gonna want ssh access.. trust me.
What is a good linux distro to use?
And, would the server run if I didn't install the gui, just the command shell?
If possible, please post a distro that doesn't require a gui.
I would highly suggest using this prepackaged Minecraft Linux OS called MineOS CRUX. Located on these forums here.
Very easy to set up. You will have a Linux OS and a MC server up and going in under 20min. It is very very very easy for someone who doesn't know Linux especially Linux in a non visual (GUI) environment. On top of that it has many pre-installed features like automatic backups that you can then easily Restore to. All the functions of the MineCraft server are usable through a web interface. This means you don't have to do any Linux command line commands once the OS is installed. It also has ftp access via sftp and you can use Free FileZila for this. This means you can easily transfer files in and out of your server in a visual (GUI) environment from any computer that isn't the server. The other nice thing about this Distro is that it one of the smallest Distros out on the market and uses very little system resources. You can find further information on this in the link I gave you above.
[simg]http://dragcave.net/image/CRlr.gif[/simg]
P
Here is the best one you will find.
http://mineos.codeemo.com/
Tailored to Minecraft servers. :smile.gif:
Legendsmc.dyndns.org
This, Debian is what I use on everything and it is by far my personal favorite.
I beet you to it already :tongue.gif:
[simg]http://dragcave.net/image/CRlr.gif[/simg]
my main two reasons:
* i like yum + rpm fusion way better than apt-get, especially via CLI
* my other main reason, is that fedora leaves the file system the way it was intended. my biggest gripe about Ubuntu (and derivatives), is that they like to get their dirty hands into everything like a little kid.. partially because of that reason, they arent very good at giving back to the general linux community, only useful to another distro based off ubuntu, they arent even much help to other debian distros, which is kinda sad.
so...
just a few things to take into consideration:
* do you get to physically be at the computer, while you install the distro?
* are you looking for an extremely light-weight distro?
* are you looking for an easily configurable distro?
* how much experience do you have with linux commands/etc?'
* how much experience do you have with command line switches/etc?
if you answer those questions, others and myself can better point you toward a distro that fits.
whatever fits you best, is whats best.
almost forgot, if its not gonna be at your house (which is somewhat common, depending) you're gonna want ssh access.. trust me.