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I am trying to start the X server (I have all the packages installed).

The problem I am having is that the server is offsite, has no screen and never has had a screen connected to it and as a result X Server has never run which means there is no xorg.config which from other posts I see can be used to start X server with out any screens.

I have tried running X -configuration (can't remember the command but I used the right one) and it output the same message that I get when I do startx which is Fatal Error: no screens

I need to find a way to start X server without connecting a screen to it.

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  • check out the "xrdp" software. It allows for multiple headless X sessions to start, and you can connect to them remotely through several clients even rdesktop.
    – sivann
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 9:07
  • Are we correct in thinking that you want headless X11: so you can run a program that insists on displaying stuff, but you don't want to look at?
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 10:08
  • xrdp is not headless: it is a protocol converter. The head will be somewhere else. But it will be somewhere.
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 10:09
  • @richard I am making an program that renders using OpenGL and I need to get an OpenGL context. The way I am trying to do this is by using glx which seems to require that you have X server running in order to get the GL context.
    – MichaelMitchell
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 17:31

2 Answers 2

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You're looking for headless with X. It's little bit described on ArchWiki, there's shown a way how to do this.

There's another alternative to run headless X11 compatible server: Xvfb(X virtual framebuffer). It's a display server that performs all graphical operations in memory without showing any screen output.

startx is just front-end for xinit which setups X.Org server and clients(Window Manager, Desktop Environment,...). Among other things, it reads client side configuration from ~/.xinitrc.

To run common user session inside virtual framebuffer:

  1. start Xfvb and setup environment - export proper environment variables
  2. execute ~/.xinitrc script that defines X client setup of user

You may alternatively execute custom commands, that would setup WM, DM, etc.

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  • Thank you so much! I needed the frame buffer for what I am doing as well. I will try those out and report back.
    – MichaelMitchell
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 16:32
  • I followed the directions of the ArchWiki link and I am still getting the same error, pastebin.com/AfF024iQ I am not able to reboot the server, I can only attempt to start X server with sudo startx
    – MichaelMitchell
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 17:23
  • I also attempted to start a display with Xvfb and then sudo startx but that did not have any impact.
    – MichaelMitchell
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 17:29
  • Ehm... Xvfb starts it's own X server. startx is front-end for xinit and it starts classic X server. So you don't startx after starting Xvfb. Why do you want to execute startx command?
    – kravemir
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 17:38
  • I was told startx starts the x server, but if I can use Xvfb for an X server I guess I don't need to. When using OpenGL in C++ do I still link to X11 or are their different libraries to link to for Xvfb?
    – MichaelMitchell
    Commented Feb 1, 2015 at 17:52
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I think you want some variant of vnc. It runs an X server on Linux machines and the result can be displayed remotely. If you don't want to see the screen anywhere use the older answers about headless X servers.

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  • I am working on a project that uses rendering for analytics, so it outputs a sort of texture in the form of a png or jpg once it finishes, so there isn't a need to view it. Thank you for the suggestion, I will look into it since it may help during development to be able to see the output live.
    – MichaelMitchell
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 22:03

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