PC

Foxconn Intel Nettop

This may apply to other small pc’s with multiple video outputs as well. This atom powered nettop has both a VGA and an HDMI port. However, it defaults to using the HDMI port. This must be changed if you want to use the VGA port.

Log in via ssh or console and run this command to list the available video outputs:

for p in /sys/class/drm/*/status; do con=${p%/status}; echo -n "${con#*/card?-}: "; cat $p; done

On my system, this outputs the following:

LVDS-1: connected
VGA-1: connected

The LVDS-1 output is the HDMI, but it shows connected even though it’s unplugged. The solution is to disable the output via a kernel cmdline option.

Remount the /flash mount r/w:

mount -o remount,rw /flash

Edit the file /flash/syslinux.cfg with nano:

nano /flash/syslinux.cfg

Find the line that starts with “APPEND” and add “video=LVDS-1:d” to the end. Replace LVDS-1 with whichever video output you want to disable. It should look something like this:

DEFAULT linux
PROMPT 0

LABEL linux
 KERNEL /KERNEL
 APPEND boot=LABEL=System disk=LABEL=Storage  ssh vt.global_cursor_default=0 loglevel=2 video=LVDS-1:d

Save the file, then remount /flash r/o:

mount -o remount,ro /flash

Then reboot.

Gigabyte Brix

Lakka appears to work quite well on the Gigabyte Brix, however there are a couple of caveats.

• Make sure that the bios is updated to F8, and set in Windows 7 and CSM mode enabled.
• Use the normal bios build, not the EFI build.
• After installation the SYSLinux configuration from pointing to the disk label to the UUID.

Using a Linux installation or live disc (or OSX) you need to have the disk with the install available to get their UUIDs. Useblkid .

Your output will look similar to:

/dev/sdb1: LABEL="SYSTEM" UUID="0a3407de-014b-458b-b5c1-848e92a327a3" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="SYSTEM" PARTUUID="98a81274-10f7-40db-872a-03df048df366"`
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="STORAGE" UUID="b411dc99-f0a0-4c87-9e05-184977be8539" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="STORAGE" PARTUUID="7280201c-fc5d-40f2-a9b2-466611d3d49e"`

Now you need to mount the SYSTEM partition and in a basic editor (such as notepad, vim, gedit, kate or emacs) open up the extlinux.conf with administrative or superuser privileges. You need to edit the APPEND line and change the boot= and disk= lines from LABEL= to UUID= and replace the identifier with the UUID.

From:

APPEND boot=LABEL=System disk=LABEL=Storage  quiet vt.global_cursor_default=0 loglevel=2

To:

APPEND boot=UUID=0a3407de-014b-458b-b5c1-848e92a327a3 disk=UUID=0a3407de-014b-458b-b5c1-848e92a327a3 quiet vt.global_cursor_default=0 loglevel=2