perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Hyojoon Kim <>]

Some update on this. 

I contacted ECS support (USA), the manufacturer of LIVA X box, asking if there is a known & working solution to make headless booting work. The answer was this: 

"Unfortunately, there are no other work arounds know for this issue.” 

So, following the suggestion from folks on this mailing list, I tried this dummy HDMI display emulator. 

http://amzn.to/1RDNHGr

It works. $15 in Amazon, if anyone is interested. Custom-making a dummy VGA plug with resistors seems to be one way too (which I didn’t try).  

Thanks,

Joon 

On Jan 8, 2016, at 4:52 PM, Hyojoon Kim <> wrote:

Hi Antoine,

Yes, I tried all these tricks without any luck. :-(

Thanks,
Joon

On Jan 8, 2016, at 11:44 AM, Antoine Delvaux <> wrote:

Hi Joon,

Did you tried this X11/grub config trick:

http://www.ghacks.net/2010/11/28/configure-linux-to-boot-without-a-monitor/
or
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1223504

Cheers,

Antoine.

Le 7 janv. 2016 à 21:57, Hyojoon Kim <> a écrit :

Thanks for the pointers! Yes, I think this is the easiest and cheapest way out of this problem if we are going to use the LIVA box. Even Debian 8 without a desktop environment installed did not boot without a monitor.

Thank you all!

-Joon

On Jan 7, 2016, at 4:34 PM, Larry Blunk <> wrote:


Yep, this looks like it should work --

http://acquisitionsyndrome.com/2014/07/headless-ecs-liva/

Google "VGA Dummy Plug".  Looks like they can be purchased
for about $10.




On 01/07/2016 03:44 PM, Joni Julian wrote:

While this solution may not apply, it reminds me of a problem I've seen
before (computer won't boot headless). The solution was to put some
resistors across the correct pins of a video connector to make the
computer think that a monitor was connected.

http://soerennielsen.dk/mod/VGAdummy/index_en.php#1x_en

https://macminicolo.net/blog/files/build-a-dummy-dongle-for-a-headless-mac-mini.html


https://macminicolo.net/blog/files/an-hdmi-adapter-for-a-headless-mac-mini.html


No guarantees, but if you have some cables or adapters and resistors
handy, this could be easy to test.

HTH!
- Joni

On 01/07/2016 03:23 PM, Hyojoon Kim wrote:

Michael,

Yes, it seems to be a bit of a mystery. Thanks for the update! I will
try a bit more and let the list know if I come up with something.

Thanks,
Joon

On Jan 7, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Michael Johnson <> wrote:

Joon,

I just checked with the person who set up that Liva (and several
others) and he said he didn't have to do anything in particular as
far as booting goes. But, he has had mixed experiences where some
will boot headlessly, while others won't. Seems a bit mysterious.
He did say that sometimes hooking a keyboard/monitor up, then
booting, and then trying again, it may start working. So, you could
try a few more times and see that gets you anywhere. We're definitely
seeing mixed results on this issue.

- Michael

On Thu, Jan 07, 2016 at 07:17:33PM +0000, Hyojoon Kim wrote:

Hello Michael,

That would be awesome. Thanks!

Just FYI, playing with the grub file did not work for me
(http://superuser.com/questions/746803/how-to-turn-a-desktop-linux-box-headless).
Maybe there are other tricks that I don’t know.

Thanks,
Joon

On Jan 7, 2016, at 2:08 PM, Michael Johnson <> wrote:

Hello Joon,

For what it's worth, I know people are booting these headless.
There's one in my office that will boot without a monitor, but I
didn't set it up, so I am not sure if any special steps were taken
to make it boot that way. I'll see if I can find anything out.

- Michael

On Thu, Jan 07, 2016 at 07:02:44PM +0000, Hyojoon Kim wrote:

Hello Michael,

Ah, I see. Thanks for the heads up! You just saved my time
attempting this.

I was even thinking of trying CentOS, but I just found this review
post about the product on Amazon, which points out the eMMC
storage detection issue with CentOS and Debian (plus about the
booting problem without a monitor)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2VPK26HWQCYAA/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00KX93WQW#R2VPK26HWQCYAA


We were thinking about deploying these LIVA X boxes around campus
BDFs. However, I think we will have to reconsider this because it
seems that we cannot even reboot the box remotely without a
monitor plugged in all the time.

Thanks,
Joon

On Jan 7, 2016, at 1:48 PM, Michael Johnson <>
wrote:

Hi Joon,

I don't know about the Ubuntu issue in particular, but in my
experience, Debian 7 didn't recognize the eMMC. You might have a
different experience, but I wouldn't expect that to work. Hope
this helps.

Thanks,
Michael

On Thu, Jan 07, 2016 at 06:43:22PM +0000, Hyojoon Kim wrote:

Hi all,

It turns out that latest Ubuntu desktop OSes cannot boot without
a monitor plugged in to the machine, so this happens with the
LIVA X box as well. Did anyone find a working solution for this?
I might just move on to using Debian 7 Wheezy, which I assume
will not have this problem, but I just wanted to check if anyone
was successful with this matter with Ubuntu before I try Debian 7.

FYI,
This seems to be a known problem:
"Q: Ubuntu can’t boot up without monitor plugged to LIVA MINI PC”
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Product/Product_LIVA_FAQ.aspx?DetailID=1593&LanID=0


I tried to solve this problem by following links and using all
suggestions I can find on the web, including (but not limited to):
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1223504
http://askubuntu.com/questions/166009/use-ubuntu-graphical-desktop-without-monitor-at-boot


However, all methods did not work for me..

Using Ubuntu *Server* OS would be one solution, but I had
installation problems with that, which I did post about it on
this mailing list before. (problem: installation process fails
to recognize the eMMC storage space)


Thanks,
Joon