Here's some crude notes I've made to get Gnone on ClearOS 6.3:

Do NOT upgrade the yum package from the CentOS repos, it WILL not work on the ClearOS system for reasons I have yet to determine.



install epel repo RPM

yum install yumex dkms gnome-desktop gnome-panel

copy over CentOS-Base.repo from a CentOS system



# CentOS-Base.repo

#

# The mirror system uses the connecting IP address of the client and the

# update status of each mirror to pick mirrors that are updated to and

# geographically close to the client.  You should use this for CentOS updates

# unless you are manually picking other mirrors.

#

# If the mirrorlist= does not work for you, as a fall back you can try the 

# remarked out baseurl= line instead.

#

#



[base]

name=CentOS-$releasever - Base

mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=os

#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6



#released updates 

[updates]

name=CentOS-$releasever - Updates

mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=updates

#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/updates/$basearch/

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6



#additional packages that may be useful

[extras]

name=CentOS-$releasever - Extras

mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=extras

#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/extras/$basearch/

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6



#additional packages that extend functionality of existing packages

[centosplus]

name=CentOS-$releasever - Plus

mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=centosplus

#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/centosplus/$basearch/

gpgcheck=1

enabled=0

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6



#contrib - packages by Centos Users

[contrib]

name=CentOS-$releasever - Contrib

mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=contrib

#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/contrib/$basearch/

gpgcheck=1

enabled=0

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6



copy over /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6 from a CentOS system



-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)



mQINBE4P06MBEACqn48FZgYkG2QrtUAVDV58H6LpDYEcTcv4CIFSkgs6dJ9TavCW

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bIdypJllsD9Fe+h7gLBXTh3vdBEWr2lR+xA+Oou8UlO2gFbVFQqMafUgU1s0vqaE

/hHH0TzwD0/tJ6eqIbHwVR/Bu6kHFK4PwePovhfvyYD9Y+C0vOYd5Ict2vbLHz1f

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x1tlfpuiFeuXYnImm5nTawArcQ1UkXUSYcTUKShJebRDLR3BycxR39Q9jtbOQ29R

FumHginovEhdUcinRr22eRXgcmzpR00zFIWoFCwHh/OCtG14nFhefuZ8Z80qbVhW

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lBpNcUUSSgddRsBwijPuWhVA3NmA/uQlJtAo4Ji5vo8cj5MTPG3+U+rfNqRxu1Yc

ioXRo4LzggPscaTZX6V24n0fzw0J2k7TT4sX007k+7YXwEMqmHpcMYbDNzdCzUer

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BgsJCAcDAgQVAggDBBYCAwECHgECF4AACgkQCUb8osEFud6ajRAAnb6d+w6Y/v/d

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mVlRymzgXK+EQDr+XOgMm1CvxVY3OwdjdoHNox4TdVQWlZl83xdLXBxkd5IRciNm

sg5fJAzAMeg8YsoDee3m4khg9gEm+/Rj5io8Gfk0nhQpgGGeS1HEXl5jzTb44zQW

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hZRbOfY8w97TgJbfDElwTX0/xX9ypsmBezgGoOvOkzP9iCy9YUBc9q/SNnflRWPO

sMVrjec0vc6ffthu2xBdigBXhL7x2bphWzTXf2T067k+JOdoh5EGney6LhQzcp8m

YCTENStCR+L/5XwrvNgRBnoXe4e0ZHet1CcCuBCBvSmsPHp5ml21ahsephnHx+rl

JNGtzulnNP07RyfzQcpCNFH7W4lXzqM=

=jrWY

-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----



yum install nx freenx

cat /etc/nxserver/client.id_dsa.key and save it

setup freenx as specified in the CentOS Wiki - http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/FreeNX#head-fdcc21f2bc71f39f6567ea4833c29d44836bd2d4

- freenx works at this point!

yum install gnome-applets

yum install gnome-screensaver gnome-system-monitor

yum install nautilus-open-terminal

yum install gnome-backgrounds gnome-common gnome-disk-utility gnome-system-log gnome-utils nautilus-actions

yum install system-config-date system-config-services

move /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo out of /etc/yum.repos.d

These aren't perfect, but should get you most of the way there.

The clearos-core repo is now a full rebuild of upstream sources, and so should be used in preference to the CentOS repo's to mimimise on future headaches. Also there is the clearos-epel repo which prevents the need to add the EPEL repo manually to your system

The above can then be reduced to:-

yum --enablerepo=clearos-core,clearos-epel install gnome-desktop gnome-panel gnome-applets gnome-screensaver gnome-system-monitor nautilus-open-terminal gnome-backgrounds gnome-common gnome-disk-utility gnome-system-log gnome-utils system-config-date system-config-services nautilus-actions

nx and freenx are available in the atrpms repo
http://packages.atrpms.net/dist/el6/

I haven't tried either of the above yet, but Tim you're saying that with that one long line you can install Gnome just like that? I was hoping that would be an option on a future release but I'll make a note of this for the weekend. Also let me know if you've done that yourself as a test so I know it works.

Thanks!!!

Tim's "long line" worked for me... (my 6.4 install is in test - so nothing to loose except maybe time

Added firefox to the end of the command - in my case 68 packages / 81 Meg download to install.

When complete did a 'startx' with my normal userid which has terminal access (bash) - Gnome came up - clicked on Firefox icon and browser opened...

Cool...to add Firefox you just added firefox-install or is it called something else? My guesses at yum list haven't worked.

I'm also on 6.4 now; the system did it automatically around 4AM a few days ago. I'll give it a run on the weekend then.

Krusher - Firefox rpm is simply named firefox

Great feature :blink:

Often it is helpful to connect into a box with a graphical UI to do things. I know there are server admins that really look down on people that want a gui for admin purposes, but tough. Server admin is not my day job. I am reasonably good with command lines, but nautilus is good for things like seeing what you got and making symlinks. Also gedit is better than vi.

I add in tigervnc to the mix. I am local, no sniffers, so vnc works for me. If I have to access from a remote (like IETF or IEEE conference with lots of sniffers around), I set up an SSH tunnel. Now if I can get HIP installed on this, then I can have a truly mobile secure connection (see http://infrahip.net/).

To get tigervnc all configured, after I install it:

vncpasswd

cat <<EOF>>/etc/sysconfig/vncservers || exit 1
VNCSERVERS="2:root"
EOF

service vncserver start
service vncserver stop

in /root/.vnc/xstartup

replace twm with exec gnome-session (SED I am not good at to have a nice command for this part)

service vncserver start

Now you are ready to use vnc (to port 5902) to get a gnome session to your server.

Well I was expecting something harder

Firefox+videolan (VLC) were the only two I was thinking of adding. Videolan might just be called videolan...

Regarding VNC; I used to use that all the time and it's a great tip as well. My new server has IPMI (and therefore iKVM) built into it that works great, otherwise I would have done this too.

Krusher wrote:

My new server has IPMI (and therefore iKVM) built into it that works great, otherwise I would have done this too.

So tell me about iKVM. I see that I have some ipmi files on this server, but nothing about iKVM. Some pointers please?

Well, on my particular Supermicro board anyway...

The IPMI feature is simply a web page that is assigned to a dedicated port (#5) on the LAN. I'm using my ClearOS box as a file server, so it gets the IP from my cable router and I connect to it like the ClearOS web management page. (No special port number).

I think the default username was ADMIN and there's either no password or it's also ADMIN.

Anyway, from that point I just go to "Remote Control" and "Console Redirection". The "Launch Console" starts a java web browser that is almost exactly like plugging in a monitor. I can reboot the PC and hit 'del' to edit the BIOS settings just like there's a KVM attached.

The framerate varies and it is probably very slow for 3D graphics. But it's not for remote gaming, just for remote configuration when VNC isn't enough. (Like editing the BIOS). You can also get all of the sensor settings without installing a program or logging in the server.

Once I make the move on this system to a media server as well (+videolan) then with a dedicated GPU this feature won't get as much use as I'll be using the TV. But for now it's working really well.

EDIT: Those files are probably relevant if you have the IPMI feature on your server, but you may or may not have the IPMI feature which doesn't necessarily need a dedicated port I believe. Just Intel's addition to the feature set...

Tony Ellis wrote:

Tim's "long line" worked for me... (my 6.4 install is in test - so nothing to loose except maybe time

Added firefox to the end of the command - in my case 68 packages / 81 Meg download to install.

When complete did a 'startx' with my normal userid which has terminal access (bash) - Gnome came up - clicked on Firefox icon and browser opened...

Thanks Tim and thanks tony for the confirmation. I'll try it out tomorrow.

Sad to say, startx did not work.

Can anyone give me some pointers?

Appreciate greatly

Try startx -- :1

what does the nx and freenx part do? I've done the rest and gnome only partially works, tons of errors and only nautilus displays

Well now! I disconnected from the vnc client, rebooted the server and reconnected. gnome-panel - etc all looked good! But then I logged out and disconnected (thinking that might help), and now I see doing a ps command, all the gnome stuff seems to still be running. So it looks like my problem is with tearing down the session well enough so it can restart. Any advice?

Hello Chris & sorry about that long delay. I had saved this message in my inbox for some time and wanted to reply once I had tried this myself.

However, I still haven't added a decent dedicated video card to my ClearOS box yet as I'm waiting to upgrade the monitor on one PC of mine so i can upgrade the video card at the same time. it's a computer hand-me-down of sorts.

If someone else has tried this and can comment on their successes or failures let us know. I will eventually get around to doing this myself...but it might be late this year or early next year yet.

For all that may be following this thread yet, I put in a new video card tonight (so, no longer a 'headless' system) and will give Tim's installation a try tomorrow night.

If it works, I'll also install Firefox, and maybe the nvidia custom drivers and maybe F@H (Folding at Home) as well. I've found F@H to be a good torture test on video cards.

If it doesn't work as planned, or since we have to do a full reinstall anyway to upgrade to 7.1, I may just end up going with something that has a GUI, like Linux Mint 17.3. (I only use this PC really for file sharing now, and it can do more with a good video card).

Either way I'll report back here on my experiment regardless of what I do in the future for an upgrade. I updated the title as well here since I'm running the last 6.x version now (6.7).

Step #1, I ran the nvidia .run file to install the drivers off their website last night in case the gnome install starts out with an autoconfig. That way, it is more likely to be correct. There were a few quirks; you first have to kill the X server process running off of root. Then it said I didn't have gcc installed; so I installed it. Then I had to install kernel-devel. So after the 4th attempt, the drivers were installed and the clearOS bootup screen looks really nice now...I suppose it's using the correct resolution.

Step #2, copy/paste Tim's long line of info into the shell. That worked, except that a bunch of packages are now missing. Maybe we need a new repo now?

No package gnome-desktop available.

No package gnome-panel available.

No package gnome-applets available.

No package gnome-screensaver available.

No package gnome-system-monitor available.

No package nautilus-open-terminal available.

No package gnome-backgrounds available.

No package gnome-common available.

No package gnome-disk-utility available.

No package gnome-system-log available.

No package gnome-utils available.

No package system-config-services available.

No package nautilus-actions available.

So, I did a 'yum clean all' after aborting the install (which is missing lots) and probably just need a new repo for the gnome or KDE packages. Any tips or Tim are you still around?

Thanks

Hi Krusher - thanks for the feedback, things have changed a little with the repo's since this how to was originally written, and now available to ClearOS 6.7

Please try the command using the clearos-centos repo instead of clearos-core. The Gnome packages are available there :-)

FYI Dave Loper also put together a how to for ClearOS 7 here
https://sfj48-fkj200.heiksthsd.cf/clearfoundation/social/community/graphical-desktop-for-clearos-7

Ah; ok thanks Tim. I've been trying various Linux distros here the last two days to see what actually works. ClearOS has been nice because the web interface is so good you don't really need a monitor until you want a monitor and then it's a little tougher.

Linux Mint I've used on other systems, but it won't boot up natively and support the raid controller I happen to have on this motherboard. I tried both openSUSE Leap and Fedora--both of those do work and have their own advantages. I'll keep experimenting a bit here as I'm sure ClearOS 7.x will also work fine; it just comes down to what I need/want to do with this computer in the future.

Thanks for the link too; I'll bookmark both this and the 7.x GUI install page for future use. Maybe someday, there will be an "app for that" too. Sorry.

A quick follow-up here before work...maybe ClearOS will end up being the best choice after all. I'll give it a try after work.

It seems that openSUSE can't find my boot partition after a reboot and Fedora doesn't like my nvidia card at all...it installs but hangs on boot.

So the community might be the best; I need a file server first and a GUI second. If I get that working after all and have future questions I'll just post as a new 7.x thread since Dave's looking for feedback anyway.

Thanks