No mouse with minis

[silvarios]

Doc wrote: If you're just going to use it as a server, you have no need for a dedicated keyboard and mouse.

Wrong. There is a bug in screen sharing that bites quite a few people. Essentially, screen sharing dies if you attempt to do certain things, say…fast user switching. Even worse, sometimes connecting an external display after the fact doesn't help, because screen sharing isn't actually dead, turns out the window server locked up. Bottom line, unless you are really comfortable piping commands through SSH, there are many reasons you need to keep a keyboard, mouse, and display handy. On the Mac anyway, I've never experience such flakiness on other platforms.

People do have to actually administer their home servers from time to time. System updates, applications updates, preference changes in various services. You need to be able to connect in some way and most people are most familiar with the GUI.


Nathan

[Doc]

silvarios wrote:
[quote=Doc]If you're just going to use it as a server, you have no need for a dedicated keyboard and mouse.

Wrong...
Mac OS X Server is designed for headless installation. ARD/VNC is enabled from the moment one boots from the installer disc.

Even so, there's seldom any need to administer a Mac server via screen sharing. The admin tools all work remotely.

But even if we're not talking about the server version of the OS, Mini's are awesome headless servers. I have one in my apartment and set my parents up with one. They work great.

No "bug" that prevents screen sharing has ever occurred with any of my Macs, nor on the hundreds that I administer weekly.

[silvarios]

Check the bug reports.

Nice strawman about OS X server. The post you quoted was a person discussing the benefits of a MacBook over a Mac mini. No mention of the server model. Clearly someone considering a MacBook is not talking about getting a server OS.

[silvarios]

Then again, the same bug is present in OS X server, so maybe not such a strawman argument. WindowServer freezes when switching users via ARD. Same or similar bug has been discussed countless times over the last two years or so. Some versions of Leopard also had the problem, not just Snow Leopard. Remember the black or no screen bug during the early days of Snow Leopard?

Here's a suggestion for the "fix", from this discussion (the best I've come across so far):

Following your advice, plus a little experimentation, I found that if you kill the loginwindow process (not the loginwindow console process) you will NOT kill the user's login session. The loginwindow process starts when you select the "Login Window..." item from the fast user switching menu and is owned by root, so you'll have to use "sudo kill - 9 " to end it.

If you run ps again, you'll see that the process starts again almost immediately. Quitting Screen Sharing on your VNC client machine and connecting to the host again will take you to the login screen.

As a bonus, fast user switching between the two accounts now works... at least while I'm still logged into both of the accounts.

Notice this is ARD and OS X servers. I have the same problem with screen sharing in the client OS. Not a coincidence.


Nathan

[Doc]

Okay. I get it.

Your obsession over this highly improbable "bug" is keeping you from making your life easier.

That's too bad.

Minis are awesome li'l servers.

[ADent]

I have a Mac mini HTPC/NAS and never have run into that bug, even though I switch users occasionally - HTPC stuff is one user, NAS is another.

I bought a mini keyboard/mouse 6 months ago and just hooked it up.

That reminds me - I need to log in and run the latest Security Update.

Is that a 10.6 bug? I am still at 10.5 on that mini and plan to stay there.