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My Mac mini doesn't boot without a monitor connected to it. As I've read in various forums on the internet, Mac OS X lets the Mac Mini boot without an attached monitor if SSH is turned on. Obviously, there's a setting in the EFI somewhere.

Is it possible to apply this setting in Linux as well?

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  • Even though I answered the question myself, I'm very much interested in a software solution rather than attaching a dummy connector. Nov 10, 2010 at 18:05
  • If there is a software solution, it's most likely going to be in EFI, as you posited in your question. You might be better off asking on SuperUser as it's not really an issue with Ubuntu. Though my limited reading on the subject suggests that your answer below is probably the way to go. Nov 10, 2010 at 21:02
  • If you want other answers but your own, then don't accept your own. Jul 13, 2012 at 1:30

3 Answers 3

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It's possible to buy dummy adapters, which tell the computer that there's a monitor connected.

They are quite easy to make oneself. Just use a DVI-I --> VGA adapter and connect the 2nd to the 7th pin using a 75 Ω resistor.

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The bug is in Bootcamp. If you install grub-efi and enable it as the primary bootloader, you ran run Linux without any monitor attached.

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I would guess that by using the nvram command under OS X, you can poke in a value that tells it to start without a monitor. I don't know what that option would be. nvram -p might give you a clue.

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  • Can I also do that in Ubuntu? Nov 10, 2010 at 23:54
  • I don't know. It's possible you can get at it from the EFI shell?
    – poolie
    Nov 11, 2010 at 1:01

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