Installing OS X on iMac with dead screen

Here's a tricky one...
My friend has an iMac Intel Core 2 (it might be Intel Core 1, anyway it's an older white model...)
His screen died couple of months back, it's just black no power in it... So he's using a secondary monitor and everything is fine.
Except that he's still stuck in Tiger because he did not want to try to install a new OS with no screen... Understandable...
So how would I do this...
I could plug a second Mac and install Lion next month using firewire.
But when I'm going to start the iMac on first launch, It certainly won't default to the second display, there will be no way for me to setup de first steps blind...
What are my options ?
Is there any command lines I could do via another computer, even if no users are created on the iMac yet ?
Maybe a way to modify the "system kernel" to auto switch to the second display on startup ?
Thanks !

Does the "other mac" have to be the same iMac model or any Intel Mac would do ?
There must be system files that are different on installation depending on the machine... No ?
Maybe Apple installs all available drivers for all Mac's in the OS install...
Thank you !

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