I have two desktops, neither has a monitor. I'm trying to do a clean OS install on each. I also have a laptop, with a 15-pin female port (the three -row video type) but I've never used it before. Could the laptops LCD suffice? Maybe I can connect each desktop (one at a time) to the laptops video port and do the installs like that? I'm afraid a laptops LCD may be more complicated than a dedicated CRT and this may end up damaging my laptop. I'm being a wuss. I shouldn't even ask. And if the laptop blows up, it blows up, chalk it up as... Anyway, about the laptop as a monitor for the desktop

You could use a terminal emulator on the laptop and use it as a serial console, but of course you need to have serial console support available in the OS's installer.

You might be able to type in a boot option to enable serial console support (this shouldn't be too long of a command, so you could do it without a monitor) but it is going to depend on the distro you are trying to install.