Ever tried to render something with openGL on a linux server that has no x11 installed nor has a physical gpu connected? I searched for a long time for a solution that would work almost out of the box and the first solution i could find was actually installing x11, mesa3d and a dummy x-display. Via putty that has x11-forwarding enabled it is possible to run x-applications just fine and even render with openGL thanks to mesa in software mode! But as soon as you close the ssh connection x11 stops and after that x-applications and openGL won't be able to connect to a display! So after every server restart openGL won't work anymore... So why do you need a display or x11 if you want to render offscreen? (more…)