Any updates on how to run OMV on PC without any GPU/video card?

Hi!

I recently upgraded to OMV 7 and have an issue that didn't exist in 5:

I can not run OMV 7 on PC that doesn't have any video card/GPU... I use old motherboard that doesn't have GPU and can not remove PCI-e video card because OMV doesn't run without it.

I found this thread:

Thread

OMV server without graphics-card or on-board GPU (SOLVED)

A common goal is to repurpose an old PC as an OMV server. This is straightforward but it is preferable not to have a powerful graphics card eating up power on the PCIe slot. Here is how I managed to get a motherboard (with no on-board GPU) to operate without a graphics card.

You will have to buy a cheap PCI card such as this one, but it can eventually be removed completely at the end of the process.

The core problem here is that you need graphics to install OMV but if you then remove the card and…

interrupt

Nov 21st 2021

So basically OMV/Debian assigns addresses to all PCI-e devices (Ethernet adapted included) during installation so if I unplug video card the address of Ethernet card changes and system is broken...

Are there any solutions for this problem? I'd like to reduce power consumption - run without video card. Unfortunately for me I don't keep 30 years old PCI cards...

Thanks in advance!

Quote from BernH

I've never tried this, nor do I have the hardware to try it, but could you perhaps use a usb vga adaptor that is linux friendly during install and then unplug it when done?

Oh, I didn't know such existed... Will do my research! Thanks for the idea!

Thanks ryecoaaron!

I'm not familiar how video cards draw power... I just ASSUMED card draws the same all the time But yes, it makes sense to idle it if no output requested.

My card is old ATI HD3450 without fan, just with heatsink. Google says 'maximum draw 25W'. I don't know how good the power management in such an old card was but even if it's 10W I guess I'll leave it in the system...

It's just sad that there is no way to force static addresses to PCI-e devices.

Quote from ryecoaaron

Are you sure it is using a lot of power? My 2060RTX uses 1 watt when idling.

Code

# nvidia-smi 
Fri Mar 21 06:33:30 2025       
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 535.216.01             Driver Version: 535.216.01   CUDA Version: 12.2     |
|-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                      |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060        Off | 00000000:06:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
|  0%   32C    P0               1W / 170W |      0MiB /  6144MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                      |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

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Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm total newbie in Linux so I did the same trick the guy did 3.5 years ago:

I got PCI video card for $5 on marketplace, removed PCI-e one and booted up. It worked. So I shut the system down, removed card and now have headless system