[aaronem]

If you run it with --daemon, the server process doesn't create a frame of its own, but only listens for connections from emacsclient instances; IIRC it also rebinds C-x C-c to delete-frame (also available at C-x 5 0), and the daemon process stays alive through everything short of M-x kill-emacs or similar.

[klibertp]

I have this:

    ;; schedule starting of Emacs server after everything else is loaded (5 min
    ;; *should* be anough for startup :))
    (run-at-time "5 min" nil 'server-start)

in my .emacs - this way I get both a window and a "daemon" server for use with emacsclient. I think it dies if the first frame is closed, though.

[aaronem]

You can actually just put

    (server-start)

at the end of your init file, and it'll behave more or less as you intend; if you've got a lot of stuff hanging off after-init-hook, you might do well to hang server-start off it as well.

That said, yeah, it will create a window which if killed will shut down Emacs, so I tend to prefer invoking it with the --daemon option instead; that way, I don't have to worry about accidentally killing Emacs if I kill the wrong frame. (I also call server-start in my init file, but I'm not actually sure that is necessary when invoking Emacs with --daemon.)

[jfb]

If you're on a Mac (as I am) it leaves an Emacs application running (complete with menu bar and app switcher icon) that you can't interact with. But otherwise, --daemon works great.