Summary

 Customers choosing the "Server with GUI" offering in the RHEL installation end up with a RHEL Workstation + Server, but with Workstation defaults that are more suitable for laptops/desktops.

The main requests are for not auto-suspending (default behavior in GNOME) and for changing the default setting for the power-button-action, which defaults to "suspend" in GNOME.

.h2 Solution (for RHEL >= 10.0)

• Create a gsetting schema override for servers: `org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power.gschema.override`

[org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power]       	 
sleep-inactive-ac-timeout=0

[org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power]       	 
power-button-action=nothing

• Introduce a gnome-settings-daemon-server-defaults subpackage to gnome-settings-daemon

  --- a/gnome-settings-daemon.spec
  +++ b/gnome-settings-daemon.spec
  @@ -25,8 +25,8 @@ License:    	GPL-2.0-or-later AND LGPL-2.1-or-later
   URL:        	https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon
   Source0:    	https://download.gnome.org/sources/%{name}/%{major_version}/%{name}-%{tarball_version}.tar.xz
   
  -# https://issues.redhat.com/browse/RHEL-30294
  -Patch0: power-server-sleep-type-default.patch
  +# gsetting overrides for the "Server with GUI" installation
  +Source1:    	org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power.gschema.override
   
   BuildRequires:  gcc
   BuildRequires:  gettext
  @@ -88,6 +88,14 @@ Requires:   	%{name}%{?_isa} = %{version}-%{release}
   The %{name}-devel package contains libraries and header files for
   developing applications that use %{name}.
   
  +%package    	server-defaults
  +Summary:    	Workstation settings overrides for Server with GUI
  +Requires:   	%{name}%{?_isa} = %{version}-%{release}
  +
  +%description	server-defaults
  +The {%name}-server-defaults package contains gsettings schema overrides
  +for the default behavior of Workstation in the Server with GUI product.
  +
   %prep
   %autosetup -p1 -n %{name}-%{tarball_version}
   
  @@ -98,6 +106,8 @@ developing applications that use %{name}.
   %install
   %meson_install
   
  +cp %{SOURCE1} $RPM_BUILD_ROOT%{_datadir}/glib-2.0/schemas
  +
   %find_lang %{name} --with-gnome
   
   %post
  @@ -199,5 +209,8 @@ developing applications that use %{name}.
   %{_includedir}/gnome-settings-daemon-%{major_version}
   %{_libdir}/pkgconfig/gnome-settings-daemon.pc
   
  +%files server-defaults
  +%{_datadir}/glib-2.0/schemas/org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power.gschema.override
  

• Add the new package to comps-centos-stream-10.xml.in (to the server related comps groups)

.h2 Testing/Verification (for QE)

Verify that the main package doesn't contain the /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power.gschema.override file.

rpm -qlp gnome-settings-daemon-47*.rpm

Verify that the gnome-settings-daemon-server-defaults subpackage contains the gschema override file.

rpm -qlp gnome-settings-daemon-server-defaults-*.rpm

.h2 Rationale

Initially I considered an approach based on the systemd-hostnamed chassis-type, but after evaluating the number of settings that customers would reasonably want to override, I figured that solution is an overkill for now.

If we start having more and more requests for different default behavior for the "server-with-gui" offering, we can reconsider that. That's especially useful when coordinating behavior across various components. As of now, I'm only aware of requests towards gnome-settings-daemon, hence why I didn't pursue the more "global" approach just yet.