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Hello we have installed an ubuntu desktop edition on our dev server. I was wondering if there is any noticeable performance loss compared to the server edition.

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The answers you've got are right, but I also thought I'd note one thing: You say you're running a dev server -- for that particular case, a full GUI can actually be a very good thing, especially if the people managing it aren't experienced sysadmins. –  Nicholas Knight Jul 29 '10 at 1:06
very true, that was the reasons behind installing it. Now we are more comfortable using a terminal so we don't really need the desktop layer. –  solomongaby Jul 30 '10 at 11:51

5 Answers 5

up vote 15 down vote accepted

As far as I know, there is no performance lost as far as overhead and whatnot. It mostly depends on what you have installed. You can turn desktop ubuntu into server ubuntu by installing the same security/monitoring/visualization programs. server edition just comes with a better set of pre-installed packages suited to a secure, easily maintained server.

Either way, I would recommend NOT installing X server and a desktop manager (Gnome, KDE, etc). This reduces boot time and memory/cpu usage.

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Almost all of the difference between Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server is in the default set of packages installed.

The only real code difference is in the kernel package - the linux-image-*-server packages have a slightly different kernel configuration to the desktop kernels. Such kernel options include enabling PAE mode (for accessing > 4GiB memory on 32bit systems) and changing the default pre-emption level (which prioritises CPU throughput over task latency).

These won't generally have a major performance impact.

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You can switch between them on an already-running system. –  Broam Nov 17 '10 at 18:06

Beyond the fact that an X server is running on the machine (and things like ubuntu-one-client once a user is logged in locally), there's really no difference nor performance impact.

There isn't a "server" version and a "desktop" version of Ubuntu where one magically limits the number of connections you can have to a machine (like some other "workstation" and "server" operating systems of years past).

The different install flavors are simply a different set of starting packages.

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The significant performance factor in Ubuntu Desktop is the inclusion of Gnome. Ubuntu Desktop is fine for a server (although a more lightweight desktop environment may be desired), but if you do not need a graphical environment, Ubuntu Server would be preferable.

This is not strictly performance related, but Ubuntu Desktop also contains several packages which would simply not be useful in a server environment, such as OpenOffice and GIMP. These can always be removed however.

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GIMP is no longer included in Ubuntu Desktop edition. Your point is still valid, though. :) –  snostorm Jul 28 '10 at 20:19
oh really? hmm I guess I'm out of the loop. –  DLH Jul 28 '10 at 20:35

The Desktop & Server editions have different kernels that might result in different performance, especially under some specific load conditions. One example reason being that task switching happens more often in the desktop edition's kernel because that improves responsiveness, but task switching incurs some overhead and thus also slightly lowers the performance of (some) applications.

In practice, it's unlikely that you will ever see this difference on a development system, and IME such a system is not under a heavy load, and it probably has other configuration differences that affect performance anyway.

If you want to minimize differences related to the kernel, it's always possible to use the server kernel in the desktop edition.

And of course, in most cases permanently running a desktop system probably has as much or more impact on performance as using a different kernel anyway... ;-)

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