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I am running a headless server on Ubuntu, with the objective of using GPU's for non graphics computation. However, I have found that without the monitor plugged in the kernel fails to load the graphics drivers.

Is there any reason that I can't use modprobe or some other mechanism to force the driver to load at boot (I have no idea if the driver will tolerate the absence of a monitor), or am I taking the wrong route entirely?

What's the best practice for resolving this?

MrSynAckSter
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2 Answers2

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A VGA or DVI dummy plug will allow the GPU to start without a monitor. For example, these can be purchased or built yourself.

Michael Hampton
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    Can this be avoided? It seems like a very, very dumb solution to what seems like a software problem. – MrSynAckSter Apr 01 '15 at 17:47
  • Not if you're using a consumer GPU. As Sven mentioned already, high end GPUs don't generally do this. – Michael Hampton Apr 01 '15 at 17:48
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    You should also beware of AMD GPUs (of any make) as they require compute jobs to be run in an X session running on the GPU. – Michael Hampton Apr 01 '15 at 17:50
  • Ah, so the problem is that the driver is dependent on X to be running. Interesting. – MrSynAckSter Apr 01 '15 at 17:52
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    Yes, which is one of the main reasons most HPC clusters use NVIDIA GPUs. It only requires the kernel module be loaded. Generally only those who require higher performance _integer_ computation seek out AMD GPUs and go through all the trouble necessary to use them, as they're much faster than NVIDIA for this type of work, while they're roughly equal on floating point computations which are the vast majority of HPC jobs. – Michael Hampton Apr 01 '15 at 17:54
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    Sadly, I'm in the integer computation camp, which is why I went the AMD route in the first place. – MrSynAckSter Apr 01 '15 at 18:04
  • I just hope it isn't Bitcoin mining. That isn't really profitable on GPUs anymore. – Michael Hampton Apr 01 '15 at 19:06
  • Nope. It's for the more security oriented flavor of hash comparison. – MrSynAckSter Apr 02 '15 at 22:55
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@MrSynAckSter If the display driver is dependent upon the X server running, why not force-start the X server at boot time? Also, why hasn't someone written a special display driver that bypasses the check to see if a display is attached? It seems like this problem should not exist in this day and age, especially on Linux where people can write kernel modules to do whatever they want.

Aquarelle
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