I don't understand why Apple doesn't offer a headless MacOS or at least a path to a minimal install. Those mac minis make a great little server box but losing 8GB to hundreds of processes, before you've done anything, just feels wasteful and inelegant.
They did provide OS X Server at one time, but the market just wasn't there.
> Those mac minis make a great little server box but losing 8GB to hundreds of processes
It doesn't matter because all the extra stuff just goes to swap. And you can't disable virtual memory anyways. So in the end you're not really losing anything. Those hundreds of processes are ultimately basically mostly just using up a little bit of your SSD, not your RAM, so it's not a concern.
Those Mac minis are a pain in the ass of a server box that auto-enable FileVault after annual releases, and getting LaunchDaemons just right compared to a Linux OS feels like perpetual iterations. trying to figure out why my apache didn't start after the last reboot. Oh, must have been the Mac log rotator messing with the file permissions again
It's a shame, because I love how efficiently MacOS runs and the form factor/design language of a Mac mini is not something I feel the need to hide in a dark corner
You'll have to leave virtual desktop enabled, and will definitely be using it semi-regularly aside SSH
There are no sales in it.
Apple leadership makes decisions based on money.
That is also why there is no iPhone mini even though there is a small number of people that really prefer a small phone.