Arch Linux Headless Streaming Server (Nvidia)

Configuration to run a fully headless server for Game or Video streaming which has a remote (virtual) desktop without using a physical dummy connector for GPU or xf86-video-dummy (which doesn't use GPU to render).
DWM used due to how light-weight it is.

Things that I run personally are:

• qbittorrent-nox (w/ WebUI)
• jellyfin-server (video streaming)
• sunshine (game streaming, remote desktop)
• steam (big picture)

Quick-start

# If yay & nvidia drivers setup already
yay -S --sudoloop --noconfirm --needed \
  dwm zsh xorg-server xorg-xinit sunshine nvidia-settings

git clone git@github.com:Sidicer/headless-arch-nvidia-dwm.git && cd headless-arch-nvidia-dwm
sudo cp nvidia-xconfig.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-headless.conf
cp .xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
cp .zprofile ~/.zprofile

How to setup NVIDIA on Arch: My previous .dotfiles or Arch Linux NVIDIA drivers installation guide

---

nvidia-xconfig.conf should be copied to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-headless.conf

sudo cp nvidia-xconfig.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-headless.conf

It was generated by plugging in a monitor temporarily and exporting the X11 settings from nvidia-settings, but can confirm that it will work on any system without modification

---

.xinitrc is mainly default taken from /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc, just replaced twm, xclock, xterm startup commands with

nvidia-settings --load-config-only & sunshine & exec dwm

which loads nvidia user settings from ~/.nvidia-settings-rc, starts sunshine server and DWM

---

.zprofile just has startx to auto-start X server.

# If not running zsh:
mv .zprofile ~/.bash_profile

Steam Big Picture NVIDIA (Stuttering/Laggy) Fix:

Original comment in Issue #8918

Modify ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy/run.sh
Replace last exec "$@" with:

export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/.config"
# Not steamwebhelper so skip
if [[ "$1" != *steamwebhelper* ]]; then
  exec "$@"
  exit
fi

args=()

# Read blocklist from ~/.config/steam-flag-blocklist.conf
blocklisted_flags=()
while read flag; do
    blocklisted_flags+=("$flag")
done < "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/steam-flags-blocklist.conf"

# Filter arguments using the blocklist
for arg in "$@"; do
  include_arg=true

  for blocklisted_flag in "${blocklisted_flags[@]}"; do
    if [[ "$arg" == "$blocklisted_flag" ]]; then
      include_arg=false
    fi
  done

  if $include_arg; then
    args+=("$arg")
  fi
done

# Add additional flags from ~/.config/steam-flags.conf
while read flag; do
    args+=("$flag")
done < "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/steam-flags.conf"

# Execute
echo "${args[@]}" >> /tmp/steam-args
exec "${args[@]}"

Then create two configuration files: ~/.config/steam-flags-blocklist.conf and ~/.config/steam-flags.conf:

cat <<EOF >>~/.config/steam-flags-blocklist.conf
--disable-gpu
--disable-gpu-compositing
--use-angle=gl
--disable-smooth-scrolling
EOF
cat <<EOF >>~/.config/steam-flags.conf
--ignore-gpu-blocklist
--disable-frame-rate-limit
--enable-gpu-rasterization
--enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder
--use-gl=desktop
--enable-zero-copy
EOF