Hi,

still no Linux support? I cannot believe it. For the USB 2.0 devices the code lives in less than only 2000 lines here:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/ke.../video/udlfb.c

Less than 2000 lines!!! With most of these lines apparently not written by DisplayLink. And DL-3xxx USB 3.0 support would likely share most of code for the previous devices!

Have the authors of udlfb.c listed on top of the file been contacted at all?

Greetings,

Hi frief:


Great idea. Doing that right now!

I just took a moment to write to Roberto, Jaya and Bernie, the authors of the USB 2 driver for DisplayLink products as pointed out by frief above.

I linked to this thread, mentioned the growing demand and the idea that various participants in this thread thought crowdsourced funding could work. [I also offered to help in any way I can - unfortunately that does not extend to coding video drivers.]

Bernie Thompson is apparently the founder of Pluggable. Hopefully he will visit this thread and see the demand for a Linux driver for these USB 3 devices based on DisplayLink technology.


I think DisplayLink should be a little embarrassed in having tried getting more adoption of the older USB 2 devices when clearly everyone has noted the benefits of moving on to USB 3, especially given the desire for multi-monitor setups.

This issue really needs to be addressed NOW.

I will continue to vote with my dollars and my clients with theirs. Right now, everyone we advise on Linux systems is holding off on ANY DisplayLink purchase as these devices are unusable for display extending purposes.


Hopefully a solution for Linux will arrive soon!

Bernie wrote back incredibly quickly:

On 3/5/2013 11:54 PM, Bernie Thompson wrote:
> Hi Felix,
>
> DisplayLink's USB 3.0 chips use an encrypted protocol for sending
> commands (all of which is very different from the USB 2.0 generation
> chips).
>
> A first step is DisplayLink would need to choose to open that up and
> document it. There's no way for someone outside of DisplayLink to
> embark on this effort until then.
>
> Sorry for the bad news,
> Bernie


I responded as follows:


Hi Bernie:


Thanks for the quick response!

In the previously referenced thread, Wim (of DisplayLink) alludes to the problem you cite by mentioning this is all somewhat complicated because (among other issues) "the DL-3000 supports content protection."

Dan, also of DisplayLink, later mentions "we've just released Alpha Mac drivers for DL-3xxx". Might those be of help? Based on BSD, I would assume Mac OSX is somewhat similar to Linux. On the other hand, the display elements are probably almost entirely different since they are now (I believe) based on XQuartz. Of course XQuartz is open sourced, so this may still be of significant help.

Wim suggests that DisplayLink is amenable to helping the Linux driver effort [ http://www.displaylink.org/forum/sho...9&postcount=35 ] if a better solution for the older devices is crafted. [Your company, Pluggable, is in fact referenced in that post as providing no cost test ("seeding") hardware for developers -- thank you! . . . I'm sorry my skill set does not apply].

I'm sure Pluggable would love better Linux support for the older series, but this backward-looking emphasis seems to fly in the face of the technology industry which continually invents a better mousetrap and quickly abandons the older one.

Any way, is there anything else I (or anyone else) might be able to do to help with this situation? [For starters, I will post this in the thread and hope it will inspire DisplayLink to open the requisite data.]

Thanks again for your interest and effort!


Felix


Hopefully something positive will come from all this.

In the previously referenced thread, Wim (of DisplayLink) alludes to the problem you cite by mentioning this is all somewhat complicated because (among other issues) "the DL-3000 supports content protection."

This is indeed true. However, it is "possible" to allow open access to the none content protection sensitive parts of the protocol without compromising the devices security. I would be more than happy to write the open source drivers free of charge but I would need access to documentation that I no longer have access to, and possibly an extremely small level of cooperation from the firmware team, whom I know well.

Andy F

Same situation
 

Hi --

I have nothing to add to the ongoing discussion, though I just thought I should signal my strong interest in USB 3.0 DisplayLink support for Linux. I almost made the mistake to order the lenovo USB 3.0 dock, under the assumption that it would work under Ubuntu; thankfully I cancelled the order after reading this thread..

I take issue with the statement that DisplayLink's USB2 adapters do not work easily on Linux. In ubuntu 12.10 with the kernel updated to 3.6+ (and I assume in ubuntu 13.04 stock) running KDE, if I plug in a displaylink adapter a dialog pops up asking me if I would like ot automatically use the new display plugged in. By default it operates in clone mode, but it is quite simple to use the display preferences panel to use it to extend the desktop.

Currently to my knowledge Ubuntu is the only distro to support this, because they are using an early version of xrandr 1.4 announced here: http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-ann...ry/002170.html - now that this is released, any distro with current versions of the kernel, xorg, and supporting libraries will have support for using screens from multiple GPUs in the same display.

This honestly works incredibly well - I have been using it since last august, though at the time it required building and installing my own versions of unreleased software. Right now my desk has 4 displays driven off of one laptop - 2 displaylink, one vga, one dvi.

I'll just reiterate my support and interest for having the DL-3xxx devices working on Linux as well... C'mon guys it's not like anyone is going to make cheap knockoffs of your devices... even if it's not a driver, whatever documentation on the protocols would definitely help!

Hi there,

I can understand manufacturers didnt do any effort in making linux drivers 5-10 years ago.. but today Linux is storming foreward as a full blown ready to use desktop.
Even Microsoft knows this, and last year they even contributed with 1% of all development on the linux kernel.
Steam has also made their platform availeble to linux .. so how come this type of producers cant see it? Be among the first and wise, and get out of the windows bubble.. when releasing a product, include drivers for win, IOS and Linux..

( sort of like when MS have to give a choice of browser... )

Thanks for an interresting product, which only lacks a use for all flavours.

/Per

First post, joined this forum only to register my amazement and disappointment that ubuntu is not supported. Have just bought Lenovo's USB 3.0 dock and will be returning it immediately, citing DisplayLink's lack of Linux support as the reason. It is 2013 right? Not 1993?