I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 and I want to boot directly and headless in the terminal (no GUI). After that I want to startx to start a program in xterm. When I boot 'headed', everything is working like supposed to, but: - When I boot headless, startx is not working (no screens found) I already tried to change xorg.conf to below, but it didn't not work: Section "Device" Identifier "VNC Device" Driver "vesa" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "VNC Screen" Device "VNC Device" Monitor "VNC Monitor" SubSection "Display" Modes "1280x1024" EndSubSection EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "VNC Monitor" HorizSync 30-70 VertRefresh 50-75 EndSection How can I boot headless and still be able to run startx? ANSWER: Adding the BusID to the Devices section in the xorg.conf above, fixed the problem for me. BusID "PCI:1:00:1"