howdy,
I have a couple of headless Solaris 8 servers i can access via ssh for basic periodic patching.
I would like to use the X server to access some of the apps that reside there also, but when i start X it errors out, complaining it can't find /dev/fb.
Is there a way to bypass the /dev/fb issue, since it seems to be looking for a monitor specific file (i think)?
Check to see if /dev/fb is linked to anything - if not, you can set it up but may have a problem with booting into multi-user mode.
First, check what output-device is equal to in the output of the eeprom command.
(Save the output as you might need it later - best to save it in a file on another system).
Shutdown the system, setenv output-device screen. Boot -sr to reconfigure into single user mode. This should create your /dev/fb. Shutdown and setenv output-device back to original setting.
Reboot and see if you can now start up X-applications.
Wow! Couldn't I just flip a switch er somthing? 
I only get to visit these machines one day each week, therefore it might be a while before I get this worked out, so anything that springs to mind is welcome. Thanks a lot for the suggestion. 
It sounds like console access is going to be required - at least for the reboot into single user, no?
If I follow the instructions, will that kill the console port access?
I checked in /dev and there is no "fb" there, as was reported by the X error message.
No, there is no switch to flip.
Yes, console access would be needed - either a dumb terminal or laptop to serial port A for single user mode unless you have a console set up already (you should think about that if you don't want to visit the server when you have a problem that required only console access to fix it). If you do have console access, doing this should not kill that access (nothing in life is guarenteed:eek: ).
The best way to prevent this is to insure in building the system you put a 'head' on it - once removed it still allows X to work since /dev/fb is there. I have 20+ servers set up for Naviscore/HP Openview that use X with no problem even though there is no Monitor on the server.