CentOS 7 install software options minimal vs desktop vs server

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ron7000
Posts: 162
Joined: 2019/01/15 20:00:28

CentOS 7 install software options minimal vs desktop vs server

Post by ron7000 » 2019/02/13 15:10:05

with Centos 7.6 during the install from the .iso on DVD there are these choices for software
  • minimal
  • compute node
  • infrastructure server
  • file & print server
  • basic web server
  • virtualization host
  • server with gui
  • gnome desktop
  • kde plasma workspaces
  • development & creative workstation
There is a brief description for each when you click on them, but I am looking for a more technical understanding of what is actually happening when you choose minimal vs gnome desktop vs server with gui. How can I find this out, short of installing each separately then doing an rpm -qa after install to see what packages are installed ? And I assume minimal results in a runlevel 3 versus server with gui at runlevel 5, but what else?

Mike_Rochefort
Posts: 215
Joined: 2016/03/16 02:34:19

Re: CentOS 7 install software options minimal vs desktop vs server

Post by Mike_Rochefort » 2019/02/13 15:31:50

Minima is the most barebones install you can get, it’s pretty much just essential services. And yes, it’s a runlevel 3 (multi-user for systemd naming).

All of the other categories are just yum groups that get installed on top of Minimal.

My recommendation, install Minimal then issue yum groups list hidden (maybe add ‘ids’ at the end). This will list all of the available groups you can install. To see what packages are contained in these groups, use yum groups info <group>. This will display the groups and mandatory/optional primary packages that the group consists of and will also mark packages you already have installed. It won’t list dependencies, the same as anything else in yum.

Cheers,
Mike
Solution Architect @RedHat | RHCE
Former SysAdmin @BlueSkyStudios and @Pixar
Feature animation and VFX enthusiast
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