USB VGA Adapter Comptability

[guillaumesoucy]

Hello,

I have a question, I do some search on search engins and I didn't find someting revelant... Maybe its not something who is frequently asked or think by FreeNAS users. So my question is, can I use an USB VGA Adapter with FreeNAS 9.10? It is the OS will take charge of the device or its the system itself? I don't want to use IPMI btw. The thing is I find a interesting mother board who will meets my needs but there was no GPU integrated to the MB (who can be normal today) and the Xeon CPU with socket LGA-1150, some have integrated GPU and somes not. I would like to take one with integrated GPU for making this simple but Newegg seem to dosen't have in stock and its since about 6 month they have it out of stock, which who remaining have no integrated GPU and I will not buy my stuff elsewere than Newegg. Its the reason of the USB VGA adapter.

Normaly USB VGA is managed by the system? It make sens but I'm not sure.

Thanks in advance for help.

Guillaume

 

[Nick2253]

When you say "USB VGA is managed by the system", what do you mean? Is the hardware managed at some level by the USB controller? Yes.

However, what I think you're really asking is "can a USB VGA adapter produce video without an operating system?" And the answer to that is a resounding No.

The USB protocol was never designed to output video data. The system would have no way of "knowing" to output video data to a USB port. And given the variations in different USB->VGA adapters that are out there, the system would need to know how to transport its video data over the USB protocol in such a way that the hardware in the adapter can extract it for output.

Now, there may be a very special motherboard out there that supports this setup, but I would not think it likely. Instead, the far more common solution is to get a low-end GPU and slap it in there. Frankly, the whole point of IPMI is to get around this awkward need for videocards in servers that should otherwise be headless.

 

[guillaumesoucy]

Hey!

Thanks for your reply. Rectification, Newegg.ca still have the CPU I want, for unknow reason the item was not listed, I do a manual search and bang, I found what I search for. So no needs USB VGA... So all will work fine... I hope so...

Have a great day!

Guillaume

 

[pirateghost]

Why would you not want to use ipmi?

You never need to put ISO on USB, you can mount the ISO directly over the network, you never need to hook up a keyboard/mouse....

There are infinite reasons to use IPMI....

 

[guillaumesoucy]

Hey!

Good point! It will be more simple when its time to install FreeNAS on the machine. No need to play anymore with USB drives or anythings else... Definitively a good idea! Thanks!