How to use Skype Desktop API on a server without a

Question

I own a vServer and want to run a Skype bot on it. Obviously skype can't start without a display. Is there maybe a command line option for skype to disable the GUI and only use the Desktop API? Or do I have to simulate a X11 display, and if thats the case how could I do that?

Answer 1

It is easy to set up a virtual X11 display ('server') with Xvfb, like so:

Xvfb :1 -screen 0 1280x1024x24 &
sleep 3
skype -display :1 &

You can even use VNC to see what's happening on the virtual buffer.

Note that the virtual server is very simple and does not support hardware acceleration so some programs may complain about missing extensions, etc. But most regular desktop applications should be okay.