When you need to change something on the server you can hook up a monitor and a keyboard and do it through the console.
I would like to hook up an external monitor in this fashion for a desktop. The current video card can only support a single display. So I was hoping there was someway to use a second monitor as just a permanent console since simple text shouldn’t require a video card?
Am I way off base here? or could someone point me in the right direction?
Hi
Don’t even need to do that, login from another machine via ssh, or if you want a GUI my preference is to use NX from nomachine, but the is VNC, RDP etc. You can also use a serial connection if you want with something like minicom.
I always managed servers using ssh (as malcomlewis suggests). The only time I needed to consider connecting a monitor or an old fashioned ascii terminal, was if there was a hardware problem that prevented it from fully booting up, or if installing a new operating system release.
I realise you can ssh in, but that doesn’t help me.
I want to connect a monitor to a desktop, probably via a usb video adapter, and use it as a permanent console (text only monitor). hoping that the simplicity of text only will not require a video card.
servers don’t have video cards, do they? so how do you run a monitor without a video card?
Hi
Not sure about a USB device and what linux support is like, most have a VGA card of some description. If you have a terminal you would use a serial port.
so I can just plug the monitor into the serial port and a console/terminal would display on the monitor? (assuming a keyboard is plugged into the server to type with)
I apologise if this is confusing or I am explaining it badly.
I want to use the extra monitor to display a text only console/terminal that I can use on the desktop computer while another monitor has a gnome/gui/window system up.
On Tue March 29 2011 11:36 pm, chrisgray1497 wrote:
>
> so I can just plug the monitor into the serial port and a
> console/terminal would display on the monitor? (assuming a keyboard is
> plugged into the server to type with)
>
> I apologise if this is confusing or I am explaining it badly.
>
> I want to use the extra monitor to display a text only console/terminal
> that I can use on the desktop computer while another monitor has a
> gnome/gui/window system up.
>
>
chrisgray1497;
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green
its an LCD. Can you explain more about the VT100. I’ve wikipedia’d it, but don’t quite understand. Does VT100 refer to the hardware? or is it software, like a dumb version of bash? What do you mean by dumb terminal?
As venzkep hinted, a dumb terminal is more than a screen. It has its own microprocessor, graphics, and serial communication circuitry built in. The DEC VT100 is just one of many types that were available (and many others could emulate it). They were commonplace in the era of mainframe computing. If you really want to have an adjacent console, you could use an old laptop. I used to service Wyse teminals about 20 years ago. 
On Wed March 30 2011 01:06 am, deano ferrari wrote:
>
> As venzkep hinted, a dumb terminal is more than a screen. It has its
> own microprocessor, graphics, and serial communication circuitry built
> in. The DEC VT100 is just one of many types that were available (and
> many others could emulate it). If you really want to have an adjacent
> console, you could use an old laptop. (They were commonplace in the era
> of mainframe computing). I used to service Wyse teminals about 20 years
> ago.
>
>
chrisgray1497;
This link shows a VT100:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100
There are a number of programs that can emulate a VT100. Windows came with a
terminal emulator and I’m sure there is a Linux version. As deano ferrari
wrote you can use an old computer (It need not be a laptop) with a serial
port to use as a terminal. But, of course, it has the video card you need.
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green
I have an HP 700.96 “glass teletype” here. Connected to (what MS-DOS people would call) the COM1 port and what Linux creates a device special file for as /dev/ttyS0. I run it by an entry in /etc/inittab
S0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -h 9600 ttyS0 vt220
As you see I use the VT220 variant of the VT100 family, but that depends on your terminals hardware (emulation).
When you use an USB serial dervice, the device special files are* /dev/ttyUSB.* IIRC. Check that if you have such a device connected.
Am trying to figure out what you’re trying to do.
There are solutions out there where multiple Users can hook up their own KVM (Keyboard, Video, Monitor) to a single machine, each running their own User Space on a shared OS, but that does require some specialized hardware. It won’t happen in a typical setup, though.
If you actually saw a headless server still connected to a monitor, I don’t know for sure what you may have seen before and maybe because you also might not have understood what you were looking at, but it is possible (and even often) for a Server to be configured without a video card in a normal sense and yet still support a directly attached monitor… It’s typically found in co-location facilities where Support needs access (both or either local or remote) access to the machine even if any/all normally critical hardware failures have occured. It’s commonly called a “Lights Out” configuration and is actually its own completely self-contained computer on a card, able to perform all necessary functions diagnosing and sometimes even repairing any failure in the main system.
As for headless Linux without a graphic card, although I haven’t done it I understand you can run xdm daemon to provide display capability for remote connections without a graphic card but if you’re talking about a directly attached display how do you propose to physically connect without a graphic card?
HTH,
Tony
if you’re talking about a directly attached display how do you propose to physically connect without a graphic card?
That is simple. It was the way terminals were connected to Unix system way before the PC was even invented. Through asynchronous lines, either direct or via a modem/telphone connection (imagine how impressed we were going from 1200 to 9600 BPS!). And as Unix/Linux still can do most things that were invented earlier, you can still connect dumb terminals to the asynchronous ports of your PC or to the USB to asynchronous devices that are available.
It is of course text only. But as YaST has it’s ncurses interface, you can even run YaST on a VT00 family type glass teletype. What do you need more then the CLI and YaST for managing a system?
hcvv wrote:
>> if you’re talking about a directly attached display how do you propose
>> to physically connect without a graphic card?
> That is simple. It was the way terminals were connected to Unix system
> way before the PC was even invented. Through asynchronous lines, either
> direct or via a modem/telphone connection (imagine how impressed we were
> going from 1200 to 9600 BPS!). And as Unix/Linux still can do most
> things that were invented earlier, you can still connect dumb terminals
> to the asynchronous ports of your PC or to the USB to asynchronous
> devices that are available.
>
> It is of course text only. But as YaST has it’s ncurses interface, you
> can even run YaST on a VT00 family type glass teletype. What do you need
> more then the CLI and YaST for managing a system?
Terminals weren’t just text-only. Consider the Tektronix 4010, for
example, which could be connected over a serial line running at 150 baud
if you were really masochistic!
http://www.pdp8.net/tek4010/tek4010.shtml
http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/acd/icf/terminals/p004.htm
xterm can still emulate the 4014 model.
That’s why text-only models were called ‘dumb’ terminals!
Cheers, Dave
From what you see on a Tektronix you are correct, but basicaly it was a character based device. But it could interprete certain character combinations as coordinates (x, y) and thus draw lines. A Tektronix 4010 was btw able to run on higher speeds then 150 baud. IIRC 2400 baud was possible (but I dumped the manuals some tiime ago).
Same is true for it’s successors starting with the 4014. Later types could coulours and space fill and more tricks, but they all where asynchronous ASCII character based devices.
On 03/31/2011 01:36 PM, hcvv wrote:
>
> baud
hadn’t heard that word in a while…
you two cut it out! using those kinda of words gets me hot!
where is granny?!
next thing you know some one will wanna know about Archie, Veronica
and what they did with Gopher, or not…
–
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
Tried LibreOffice? Do that and help at http://is.gd/dZ9j2W
[NNTP via openSUSE 11.3 + KDE4.5.5 + Thunderbird3.1.8]
On Thu March 31 2011 06:36 am, hcvv wrote:
>
> From what you see on a Tektronix you are correct, but basicaly it was a
> character based device. But it could interprete certain character
> combinations as coordinates (x, y) and thus draw lines. A Tektronix 4010
> was btw able to run on higher speeds then 150 baud. IIRC 2400 baud was
> possible (but I dumped the manuals some tiime ago).
>
> Same is true for it’s successors starting with the 4014. Later types
> could coulours and space fill and more tricks, but they all where
> asynchronous ASCII character based devices.
>
>
The Tektronix graphics terminals used a “Direct-View Storage Tube”. Unlike
modern displays they did not need to refresh the display, hence there was no
frame buffer. The beam was literally deflected to draw a line (or shade an
area) and the image would be persistent on the screen. If a section needed
to be redrawn, the whole screen would be cleared and redrawn.
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green
Googling “USB Monitor Adapter” returns some interesting results…
Tony
Interesting, but I see they require Windows or Mac as a driver needs to be installed. Do you know of any that work with Linux? Just squirreling away information…
Interesting, but I see they require Windows or Mac as a driver needs to be installed. Do you know of any that work with Linux? Just squirreling away information…
Check out this thread discussing USB graphics device.