[mythtv-users] Can't start mythfrontend with TV off since moving to Intel graphics

[David Hampton]

On Tue, 2020-10-27 at 19:40 +0000, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> I've recently moved from nvidia to Intel graphics for my frontend.
> With nvidia, I could specify CustomEDID and ConnectedMonitor
> options in my xorg.conf so that mythfrontend would start up before
> the TV was turned on, but Intel graphics doesn't support the
> ConnectedMonitor option and I so far can't find an alternative.
> 
> When mythfrontend starts it reports failure to find a screen and 
> attempts to set a mode with 0fps, although xrandr correctly reports
> the modes specified via CustomEDID.

I think my Intel NUC frontend still boots properly without a screen
connected, but its been a while since I spent time fighting it. Last
time I worked on this stuff I had installed an HDMI pass-though audio
extractor and was trying to make surround sound work again.

Here are the steps I took:

1) Connect the receiver directly to the frontend.

2) Boot and copy the receiver EDID with monitor-get-edid (I think).

3) Install the EDID file into /lib/firmware/edid/sony-receiver.edid

4) Tell dracut to include the EDID file in the initramfs by putting the
following into /etc/dracut.conf.d/load-edid.conf:

  install_items=/lib/firmware/edid/sony-receiver.edid

5) Rebuild initramfs with 'dracut -f'

6) Update the kernel command line arguments to read the EDID file:

  grubby \
    --args="drm.edid_firmware=edid/sony-receiver.edid" \
    --update-kernel `grubby --default-kernel`

7) Put the following into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-xorg-tweaks-
intel.conf:

  Section "Device"
    Identifier "Default Device"
    Driver     "intel"
    Option     "Monitor-DP1"  "DP1 Monitor"
    Option     "TearFree"     "true"
  EndSection

  Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "DP1 Monitor"
    Option     "Primary"        "true"
    Option     "HotPlug"        "false"
  EndSection

8) Reconnect the HDMI audio extractor.

9) Reboot.

This is several hours of trial and error (and swearing) summarized into
bullet points. I think I got everything in there. The "Hotplug"
xorg.conf option might be the specific solution to your problem.

I hope this helps.

David