On Thu, 05 Jun 2003, Mike M wrote:
> I want to save money as I expand my collection of Debian servers by running
> without a video card. On the rare occasion that I need console access to a
> machine I would pull it off the shelf and insert an AGP video card.
You might not want to do that. If they are PCs, chances are that they
have a serial port. So instead of having to manually add/remove AGP
cards, buy a crossover (serial) cable, and check /etc/inittab for an
example on how to launch getty on a serial port. Then, whenever you
have a problem with the OS, grab another machine (laptops work fine),
and hook up the serial cable. There are linux kernel parameters to
use the serial ports in this manner more effectively.
> I just tried it on one of my servers and the only thing I observed was a beep
> during the boot-up sequence.
There is probably an option in the bios to either work without a video
card, or with a video card. Make sure its set to work without a video
card. The beep is probably the bios checking to see if the video card
is there, and then telling you it isn't.
> Is this an acceptable mode of operation? Are others running in this mode?
Sure. Running a P166 this way in the basement, works fine. I use ssh
for most of the remote management, and have cron jobs setup to check
for updates, mail me system info, etc. Kept getting errors logged
though until I disabled launching getty on tty[1-6].
> Should most motherboards being recently produced be expected to run without a
> video card? (Maybe it's a BIOS thing?)
Most should, but you almost always need to set it up so it doesn't error
without a video card. Some bioses can be set up to show information on
a serial port, but this is pretty rare outside of servers.
Hope that helps,
Jesse Meyer
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