There have been several forum posts here talking about issues getting a device to run headless. In some cases the device is a Raspberry Pi, in other cases a NanoPi, Odroid or other system. I recently bought a Kodlix N34 mini pc and went through the configuration of the desktop again and got it working in one go. So I decided to write things down once and for all. Moderators, could this topic be made sticky so future users with problems can be referred to it?
Raspberry Pi and similar systems
Many peripheral items can be configured via the /boot/config.txt and the desktop size is one of them. In order to have a desktop with a certain size, even if no HDMI cable is connected, edit the file and make sure these three items are uncommented:
This will set the desktop size to 1400x1050 at 60Hz which may not be what you want. For more info about these values, including which hdmi_modes are available, see www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/
Other systems
For devices that don't have the /boot/config.txt file (which to my best of knowledge are all other devices including NanoPi M4 but please correct me if I am wrong) there are several options to configure a headless desktop. In my experience using an xorg.conf file works best and I would recommend anyone to use this. Simply put this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and reboot. Again, the desktop size is set to 1400x1050 at 60Hz. I found this xorg.conf file on the Odroid forums and it also works on my N34 so it is not restricted to arm based devices. You may need to experiment with the desktop size to find one that matches your needs.
Raspberry Pi and similar systems
Many peripheral items can be configured via the /boot/config.txt and the desktop size is one of them. In order to have a desktop with a certain size, even if no HDMI cable is connected, edit the file and make sure these three items are uncommented:
This will set the desktop size to 1400x1050 at 60Hz which may not be what you want. For more info about these values, including which hdmi_modes are available, see www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/
Other systems
For devices that don't have the /boot/config.txt file (which to my best of knowledge are all other devices including NanoPi M4 but please correct me if I am wrong) there are several options to configure a headless desktop. In my experience using an xorg.conf file works best and I would recommend anyone to use this. Simply put this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and reboot. Again, the desktop size is set to 1400x1050 at 60Hz. I found this xorg.conf file on the Odroid forums and it also works on my N34 so it is not restricted to arm based devices. You may need to experiment with the desktop size to find one that matches your needs.