I normally like building server images because they are small and fast to compile. An then I can add the wanted desktop by "sudo apt install gnome" or other desktop later.

 

But, sometimes I wonder if the desktop images have more features, like hardware drivers, than a server image with an added desktop afterwards. Can this be the case? Or does server images contain the same drivers and hardware support as a image built with a destop included?

Desktop images have some standard adjustments, like other wallpaper or certain extensions enabled. Driver, or kernel-wise, they are, depending on things mentioned earlier, identical to server images. You can check the build framework on Github for all the code.

15 minutes ago, Werner said:

You can check the build framework on Github for all the code.

 

That is true but almost impossible to understand for an outsider.

5 hours ago, Werner said:

or certain extensions

Does this include graphics, like gpu driver, mesa, opengl, vulkan and so on?

You can see here what the most important one does: https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/extensions/mesa-vpu.sh

How do I enable those extensions during the image build?

https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_Build-Switches/

Look for ENABLE_EXTENSIONS

Thanks, found it.

run this command to start building with an extension:

 

./compile.sh ENABLE_EXTENSIONS=mesa-vpu