This fails in Arch Linux (you get only a black screen) because an Xsession script does not exist. If no X server is running on the server, NoMachine starts its own X server (DISPLAY :0) and tries to run a /etc/X11/Xsession script to get the user into the default DE. Xorg does not see any displays to connect to, so it doesn’t start.The modesetting driver doesn’t load, as the system does not find any physical screens to connect to.TL DR 2: I know I could install the xf86 dummy driver and trick the machine into thinking there’s a physical device connected to get it to start Xorg, but the nomachine documentation indicates that should not be necessary, so I’d love to try to get it working as the developers apparently intended. TL DR: nomachine does not start its own Xorg server as its documentation indicates it is supposed to, thus LightDM never starts, thus XFCE cannot start, so there’s no desktop to connect to.

It’s supposed to run in headless mode without any issue, but it appears to be unable to start Xorg, and therefore cannot start LightDM. I’m presently trying to get nomachine to work with no display plugged in. After starting this thread ( Remote Desktop Server: Best choice from official repo or AUR on Raspberry Pi 4 (4 GB RAM)? ), I installed nomachine from the AUR on 's recommendation, and had no issues with it while I also had a monitor plugged into the Pi.

Nomachine server install linux