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I am about to do a minimal installation of Ubuntu 10.10. First, I'll do a command-line install with the minimal Ubuntu cd. Second, I want to install a minimal version of gnome. So I am simply looking to do a sudo apt-get -y install gnome-core xdm. On some websites people add in the xorg package as well. What is the point of that package, and do I need it for a minimal gnome install?

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XDM is the display manager for X Windows, Xorg is the X Windows server, both are required (or a suitable alternative). I assume that the reason some people do not mention Xorg is because it is automatically installed alongside another package (would have thought gnome-core has it as a dependency).

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XDM is not required to use X Windows. – grawity Jan 22 '11 at 14:47
That's not what I meant -- I meant it was required for his particular use (afaik, gdm is not installed with gnome-core) – Matthieu Cartier Jan 22 '11 at 15:21
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xorg contains the Xorg X server. It isn't required for operation of GNOME applications since X is a network-transparent protocol and the actual X server could be running on another machine. Adding it to the install command ensures that a X server is available on the local machine.

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You should not have to manually specify it. If minimal gnome depends on the xorg package, then it will be installed automatically.

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