I have a 2014 Macmini with the original OS removed and replaced by Ubuntu. It is connected by the Thunderbolt port with an VGA adpater to a LG FLATRON L1953S 5:4 monitor.
When trying normal boot, the monitor enters into sleep mode, not reaching to show the login screen.
When booting from recovery mode, it works OK.
After checking related questions, here are some outputs from the terminal:
~$ xrandr
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1280 x 1024, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024
default connected primary 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1280x1024 77.00*
and
$ sudo lshw -C display
*-display UNCLAIMED
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 09
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:a0000000-a03fffff memory:90000000-9fffffff ioport:2000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff
*-graphics
product: EFI VGA
physical id: 1
logical name: /dev/fb0
capabilities: fb
configuration: depth=32 resolution=1280,1024
I understand that old dispositives can yield problems of compatibility, but for me the mystery is why it can work booting from recovery mode but not with normal boot.