Ygtjki

xorg-x11-server-common

Internet services that are not required for system or application processes must not be active to decrease the attack surface of the system. X Windows has a long history of security vulnerabilities and will not be used unless approved and documented.

So there is this rule that claims X is bad. It seems that if in CentOS7 (i.e. RHEL7) removing xorg-x11-server-common results in the following also being removed

xorg-x11-drv-fbdev
xorg-x11-drv-evdev
xorg-x11-drv-v4l
xorg-x11-drv-ati
xorg-x11-server-xorg
xorg-x11-drivers
xorg-x11-drv-intel
xorg-x11-drv-synaptics
xorg-x11-qxl
xorg-x11-vmware
xorg-x11-wacom
xorg-x11-void
xorg-x11-nouveau
xorg-x11-vmmouse
xorg-x11-ves
xorg-x11-dummy

In doing so after a reboot I no longer have a graphical login at the console, doing a init 5 or systemctl isolate graphical.target results in an error, it's now like sitting at a commodore hooked up to the living room tv but black & white not black & green.

My question is, for a server in a work environment where users would not sit at a console but rather VNC or remote in over the network, will graphical programs like libreoffice, firefox, the graphical user manager in gnome system-config-users work? Or does removing xorg bring us back to the 70's style of computing? How ingrained is Xorg-x11-* would gnome and right-click new terminal still work?

update: so it appears it is very needed if you want to have any kind of windowing including your mouse and keyboard working.

• xorg-x11-drv-evdev = input driver for Linux's generic event devices, it therefore supports all input devices that the kernel knows about, including most mice and keyboards.


• can't install that or xorg-x11-drivers without having xorg-x11-server-common installed


• thanks for playing, I recovered by doing yum install x11-xorg-drivers which basically reinstalls everything including server-common