Boot 9.10 without monitor connected

[marleaux]

Hi all,

I have a self made media pc with an onboard intel graphics card. Because I was not able to mirror the screen (1280x1024) to a TV with automatic rescaling, I bought a small device that can do this for me. Unfortunately the VGA connector of it is not fully wired. This means that the system thinks, that no monitor is connected.
If I plug that thing in after gnome has booted completely, everything works fine. But - of course - I want it to be connected all the time.

So I do need to be able to start the xserver and gnome without automatically search for a monitor.

I tried some tips I found here but I had no success.
What I tried:
create a xorg.conf that works with X in Ubuntu 9.10
Remove all but the one resolution I need.
Add Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT"

Linux will not boot and is not accessable by vnc. Even ping does not response.

Do you have an idea how I can tell the xserver to do what i want without caring about connected devices?

[edit:]
After booting the computer I can see GRUB on both screens. The system freezes with with a blanc screen (no VGA signal) after GRUB loads linux.


Best regards,
marleaux

[Giblet5]

Hi all,

I have a self made media pc with an onboard intel graphics card. Because I was not able to mirror the screen (1280x1024) to a TV with automatic rescaling, I bought a small device that can do this for me. Unfortunately the VGA connector of it is not fully wired. This means that the system thinks, that no monitor is connected.
If I plug that thing in after gnome has booted completely, everything works fine. But - of course - I want it to be connected all the time.

So I do need to be able to start the xserver and gnome without automatically search for a monitor.

I tried some tips I found here but I had no success.
What I tried:
create a xorg.conf that works with X in Ubuntu 9.10
Remove all but the one resolution I need.
Add Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT"

Linux will not boot and is not accessable by vnc. Even ping does not response.

Do you have an idea how I can tell the xserver to do what i want without caring about connected devices?

Best regards,
marleaux

It sounds like the PC is stopping during POST (self-test). Not ubuntu related...

Try hooking up a monitor and entering BIOS setup.

There should be an option like "Halt on Error" and some optional error types. It's probably set to "ALL". Set it to "None". Save the changes. Power off. Switch the monitor cables around. Try again.

[marleaux]

Hi Giblet5,

thanks for your quick answer - good idea. But the computer itself does not care about the monitor. I hibernated the system, plugged off the power plug for 20 seconds and switched it on again. That works fine. I'm back on my gnome desktop after 25 seconds with 1280x1024 on the monitor and a scaled copy on the TV.

I'm still sure that ubuntu stops because it can not find a monitor.

Any other ideas?

marleaux

p.s.: I changed "halt on" to "no errors" anyway.

[Giblet5]

Hi Giblet5,

thanks for your quick answer - good idea. But the computer itself does not care about the monitor. I hibernated the system, plugged off the power plug for 20 seconds and switched it on again. That works fine. I'm back on my gnome desktop after 25 seconds with 1280x1024 on the monitor and a scaled copy on the TV.

I'm still sure that ubuntu stops because it can not find a monitor.

Any other ideas?

marleaux

p.s.: I changed "halt on" to "no errors" anyway.

Nope. Sorry.

I had an HTPC but replaced it with a PS3 that has a 1TB drive hanging off its SATA interface. I have mediatomb installed on my Samba server and all of the 50+G of music is available right off the PS3's attractive menu.

ie, I cheated.

[Jliax]

Any luck one this one? Got the same problem here. Xorg.conf is set to VESA.

[MrTAToad]

I'm having the same trouble with 9.10 (after upgrading from 9.04).

For some reason, without a monitor, 9.10 wont even boot to the boot loader (although with 9.04 it was all fine) - POST check, is, as far as I know, all okay (there is no options to stop on an error).

[Ralph Hoflich]

Yes, I'm having this problem too. With 9.04 it was no problem, after an online upgrade, after the reboot, it doesn't work. I have 2 graphics cards - a built-in motherboard one, and a PCI one. If I connect a monitor to the motherboard connector, it starts up fine! So strange. I wonder if it's a grub issue, or a lower-level kernel issue?

[BooDaddy]

Im having the same issue. I have an older GX260 that will not boot without the monitor plugged in. I cant ping my machine after I boot without a monitor. If I plug a monitor in, and boot, I have no problems.

Now, heres whats odd. If I boot without monitor, if I hook up a monitor after it has powered on... nothing displays.

There is nothing in my bios set to halt on video.. only keyboard which has been disabled.

Anybody come up with a solution?

[Ralph Hoflich]

I'm still at a loss with this one - I can't seem to find any logging in /var/log when the system doesn't boot - my feelings are that maybe it's GRUB or something low level? The funny thing is, when I boot without a monitor, then it stays there and doesn't continue, if I connect the monitor then, I still can't see anything on the screen! So trouble-shooting this is very difficult. Anybody have any ideas how I can trouble-shoot this?

Would be very keen to reboot the machine without having to bring my monitor down to the PC...

[marleaux]

Hi.

I solved it. The problem - in my case - is that I do have an intel graphic card (onboard). The Intel dirver has a bug. The man pages speak about "DDC", in the driver source you can see, that the entry is called "NoDDC". But playing around with NoDDC had no effect.

I needed to add i915.modest=0 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub.

And I added xrandr settings to /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45custom_xrandr-settings

Now I can boot with and without monitor and I allways have the right resolution via VNC or on the small 5" display. Why the hell is this so complicated?

best regards