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I also tried using a monitor “dongle” that plugs into the HDMI port. It allows the graphics card to initialize, and it makes Linux think that there is a 4K monitor attached, and I can select some modes. It isn’t perfect, but it allows resolution that is better than 1024×768, even if the modes aren’t the ones that are exactly native to my display.
Hello. If I may add to this discussion, I think I can explain the problem that @mkrisk is having. I am using Ubuntu version 15.10 with Mate as the window manager and lightdm as the display manager. When Ubuntu starts, it creates an x session and, since there is no monitor connected, it has no idea what modes are supported to whatever display will connect to it. So it starts with a fixed resolution of whatever the window manager defaults to, I believe. In my case, it seems to be 1024×768. So, to reproduce the problem, you might try creating a headless installation with a configuration like I described. Whether or not it matters, I am using an Intel NUC5i5RYH with an Intel HD 6000 display chip, and I believe that the driver module that it uses is the i915.
I have read that you can install the xserver-xorg-video-dummy driver and create an xorg.conf file that contains a device section that specifies the dummy xorg driver, a monitor section that sets sync and refresh, and finally, a screen section that uses the defined monitor and driver, and specifies the modes that you want to be able to use. This is described at http://askubuntu.com/questions/453109/add-fake-display-when-no-monitor-is-plugged-in if you want to read about it in more detail.
I tried this configuration, and it kind of worked, but it resulted in some errors in Mate when I was running it. I also do not like to create a static configuration reminiscent of fifteen years ago, because it would be nice if we could get this working in the dynamic way that the x server currently operates under normal circumstances.
A nice solution would be to provide a way that allows the x server to be initialized properly when run headless without having to specify a specific configuration. That way, if we want to connect a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to our headless servers, it will work properly that way, and at other times (which is the majority of the time) we can run our servers in a headless configuration and have NoMachine be able to adjust the resolution through the NoMachine client.
I hope this helps, and I’m very interested in seeing a solution. Thanks for your time!
Steve