[Discuss] Genesi EFIKA MX and boot without HDMI plugged in

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (Dan Ritter)]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 02:52:45PM -0500, Chris O'Connell wrote:
> Hi Guys,
> 
> I'm about to deploy my first Genesi EFIKA MX box at a site I monitor.
>  Unfortunately, I've got one nagging issue with these devices:  The boxes
> don't always boot up without an HDMI monitor plugged in.  I've found a work
> around:
> 
> # sudo vi /etc/init/gdm.conf
> 
> Default runlevel in ubuntu 10.4 is 2 so you must change this line
> 
> stop on runlevel [016]
> 
> adding "2" at runlevel list
> 
> stop on runlevel [01*2*6]
> 
> While correcting my original complaint the problem with this solution
> is that if there is a monitor plugged in the the only thing that shows
> up is the GENESI splash screen and I can't use the monitor.
> 
> Is there a simple fix to get these devices (or Ubuntu 10.04 in
> general) to boot headless?

Sure. 

1. in /boot/grub/menu.lst or grub.cfg, change defoptions from
quiet splash to nosplash.

2. in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf
blacklist vga16fb

3. Disable GDM by removing the S..gdm file in your runlevel.

That should do it.

-dsr-