Minimal Desktop GUI installation

Support
1

I need to run a minimal desktop on my NS backup server. Resource use is not an issue, but I need a desktop to install VirtualBox to use the machine to run some test VM’s, rather than run tests on my debian server which is running my live NS vm.
I was able to install a minimal desktop on NS using this line as suggested, in this old thread, seem to finish successfully.

yum groupinstall --setopt=centos-base.enablegroups=1 --setopt=centos-updates.enablegroups=1 install basic-desktop desktop-platform x11 fonts

But, I get errors when running ‘startx’.

xf86EnableIOPorts: failed to set IOPL for I/O (Operation not permitted)

I realize this is not a NS issue, but I thought one of the very smart people here may be able to help me out.

2

you don’t need a desktop to run virtualbox on your server…

take a look at phpvirtualbox :wink:

3

Ok, that sounds good, I’ll try that, thanks.

4

Why do you even need phpvirtualbox… what does that do that’s unavailable with vboxmanage?
I’m running over 20 vms under various ubuntu server hosts without gui’s, and many more with the gui… gui is more convenient for sure, but not necessary since it creates it’s own annoyances.

5

I need a non-admin to be able to log onto the backup server, and start up a VM of the backup domain controller if the main debian server that is running VM’s of Zentyal DC, and live-NethServer goes down and I am away.

6

@wbilger create a user and setup a cron to start the vm ‘vboxmanage startvm…’ when that user logs in, though you’ll need to verify permissions depending on your backup scheme, also, depending on your backup scheme, you may need to deal with the whole adding the latest backup vm to the virtualbox gui.