USB-VGA suggestions?

[Karl Auer]

On Thu, 2017-07-20 at 17:25 -0400, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
> Hey, all.  I've got the weirdest server I've seen in some time: it's
> got four (independent) blades, but no video. You can pop the slot
> off, buy a VGA connector with a cable running to the VGA header, and
> plug that in... but it's a PITA.  What it *does* have for every
> blade, though, is USB -- two of 'em.  So if I had a VGA-to-USB
> adapter, and a keyboard, I'd be golden.  But last time I looked,
> Linux support for those adapters was kinda questionable.  Has anyone
> had any good experiences?

Not me - but I have had experience with using USB-to-serial adapters.
Linux supports those very well indeed, and Unix has had a serial
console since God's dog was a puppy. A serial console will give you a
fully-fledged command line interface. If you really, really want to you
could run ppp over it and have an X terminal :-)

Plus a serial console gives you the ability to copy files to and from
the server, which a VGA screen can't do.

Google something like "linux boot serial console" and go wild.

Regards, K.

PS: No, you don't need to go to eBay looking for 80x25 green screen
serial terminals :-) Any laptop can do it, though few of them have
serial ports these days, so you will need another USB-to-serial
adapter. You will also need a terminal program to run on said laptop.
If your laptop is running Linux you have minicom or one of a bunch of
others including kermit. Since Microsoft canned HyperTerminal you will
need to find another one - RealTerm, TeraTerm and of course puTTY will
do the job.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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