using amdgpu headless (no monitor)

[Ian Rogers]

Thanks much Alex for responding.

On Thursday, May 28, 2020, 04:29:16 PM EDT, Alex Deucher  wrote:

>> I ask because I want to be able to run a system that is sometimes headless and sometimes not.  And I'd like to be able to access a current X session (either logged in or at the login greeter) both remotely (say via VNC) and locally via the physical display (when it is plugged in).without having to reboot or lose that X session.
>>
>> However I've noticed that (at least with a Ryzen 3 3200G with Radeon Vega 8) an X session does not login successfully when accessed remotely if there is no monitor connected.
>> I assume this is caused by something in the amdgpu driver but I haven't been able to figure out what.
>
>It's your display manager (X, mutter, kwin, etc.).  They generally
>won't start if they doesn't detect a monitor.  You might be able to
>force one via whatever configuration mechanism is provided by your
>environment.

Yes it seems to be an issue with gnome-shell/mutter (the shell/window manager), rather than Xorg (my display server), but I will report back if the relevant developer teams of those items have any requests for amdgpu related to this issue.