NoMachine with no physical monitor connected to host?

[cacophony]

For years I’ve used a NoMachine Enterprise Client at home to remotely access my Ubuntu workstation at work. Both my work and home setup have a 1440p monitor attached, and it has allowed me to seamlessly transition between using the continuously running graphical apps of my work PC from either work or home.

In the future it sounds like I won’t need to physically access the work PC anymore, so I’m wondering if there’s a way to save space and have the work PC shoved under a desk somewhere with no physical monitor attached, but still have access to the same persistent 1440p experience when I connect from home? (persistent meaning that all the apps I have running, window locations, etc will persist across different NoMachine connections). If there’s a solution, are there any disadvantages or issues I should be aware of?

Thanks!

[Britgirl]

You can install NoMachine on a headless Linux host and connect to its display. I imagine you already using this on your Ubuntu workstation. Some considerations to bear mind:

Connecting to Linux headless machines with NoMachine
https://kb.nomachine.com/AR03P00973

NoMachine is designed to work out-of-the-box on Linux headless machines provided a desktop environment is installed. NoMachine is able to detect when the X server is not running and run its own virtual display, which is an embedded X server. This ability, enabled by default in the free edition of NoMachine, can be activated also in the commercial versions (Enterprise Desktop).

If you want to run multiple virtual displays, and keep your applications running in all of them, try NoMachine Workstation from the Terminal Server for Linux suite. This will let you run up to 4 individual desktop sessions, all running behind the physical display. It’s also available as evaluation software.

Differences between NoMachine Free Edition for Linux and NoMachine Workstation for Linux
https://kb.nomachine.com/AR10K00702

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