Server - no video card
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. I just tried it on one of my servers and the only thing I observed was a beep during the boot-up sequence. Several questions come to mind: Is this an acceptable mode of operation? Are others running in this mode? Should most motherboards being recently produced be expected to run without a video card? (Maybe it's a BIOS thing?) Thanks, -- Mike M. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Server - no video card
Mike M [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 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. I just tried it on one of my servers and the only thing I observed was a beep during the boot-up sequence. Several questions come to mind: Is this an acceptable mode of operation? Are others running in this mode? Should most motherboards being recently produced be expected to run without a video card? (Maybe it's a BIOS thing?) The BIOS on a lot of machines, particularly older ones, won't allow you to boot without a video card. In some cases you can tweak a BIOS setting to tell it to ignore the lack of a video card and boot anyway, *but*, you have to install a video card in order to set that in the BIOS, usually. Is it a valid approach? Yeah, I suppose there's nothing wrong with the approach, if your machines BIOS supports booting without a video card, but it's a MIGHTY pain to have to add a video card when something goes wrong. For most cases like this I generally just get a computer with built-in video, set it up while connected to a monitor and then disconnect the monitor and throw it in the closet. Either that or I shell out $30 for a cheapo VGA card. If I tried setting up a server without a video card I know I'd be cursing myself every time something went wrong and I had to open up the case and install a video card just to diagnose the problem. Gary -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Server - no video card
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 -- ...crying Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!... ~ HPL icq : 34583382 | === ascii ribbon campaign === msn : [EMAIL PROTECTED]| () - against html mail yim : tsunad| /\ - against proprietary attachments pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Server - no video card
Quoting Mike M [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 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. I just tried it on one of my servers and the only thing I observed was a beep during the boot-up sequence. Several questions come to mind: Is this an acceptable mode of operation? Are others running in this mode? Should most motherboards being recently produced be expected to run without a video card? (Maybe it's a BIOS thing?) I believe most motherboards won't boot without a video card. You should be fine without keyboard and monitor plugged in, but in most cases the Bios Check will fail if no video controller is detected. If you don't have onboard video, then you could go out to a computer store and see if they could sell you an old cheapo one. Cheers, Mike - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Server - no video card
On Thursday 05 June 2003 13:03, Gary Hennigan wrote: Mike M [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 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. I just tried it on one of my servers and the only thing I observed was a beep during the boot-up sequence. My bad here. I meant to report that everything worked and the only thing that changed from before was that I heard a beep. I am able to ssh in and it's doing its job with no problem that I can detect so far. Several questions come to mind: Is this an acceptable mode of operation? Are others running in this mode? Should most motherboards being recently produced be expected to run without a video card? (Maybe it's a BIOS thing?) The BIOS on a lot of machines, particularly older ones, won't allow you to boot without a video card. In some cases you can tweak a BIOS setting to tell it to ignore the lack of a video card and boot anyway, *but*, you have to install a video card in order to set that in the BIOS, usually. OK. I remember those options. I changed it when the machine complained about not having a keyboard in a previous exercise. I can't remember what value I set. It must be set to ignore all errors since the machine came up. Is it a valid approach? Yeah, I suppose there's nothing wrong with the approach, if your machines BIOS supports booting without a video card, but it's a MIGHTY pain to have to add a video card when something goes wrong. For most cases like this I generally just get a computer with built-in video, set it up while connected to a monitor and then disconnect the monitor and throw it in the closet. Either that or I shell out $30 for a cheapo VGA card. If I tried setting up a server without a video card I know I'd be cursing myself every time something went wrong and I had to open up the case and install a video card just to diagnose the problem. Geez, I must really be a tightwad :-). I shopped for on-board video mobos at pricewatch but found the selection had fewer PCI slots than I needed (4-5) at the price point I wanted ($40). I am trying to build a sub $200 server. Debian is making CDROMs pointless as well. I am looking a 7 CDROM drives that I rarely use. It's time I looked in to loading from a network drive. Thanks for the advice. I going to run video card-less in a couple of boxes for a while to see how often I need monitor access. I might do the serial access thing mentioned in another response. Gary -- Mike M. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Server - no video card
On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 11:03:17AM -0600, Gary Hennigan wrote: Mike M [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 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. Either that or I shell out $30 for a cheapo VGA card. If I tried setting up a server without a video card I know I'd be cursing myself every time something went wrong and I had to open up the case and install a video card just to diagnose the problem. It's possible to pick up crappy old PCI video cards for next to nothing at computer fairs (one UK pound each, typically). (And not always that crappy - Compaq-branded Matrox Millenium IIs seem to be pretty common.) -- Pigeon Be kind to pigeons Get my GPG key here: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x21C61F7F pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
