DisplayLink on Debian 12 (bookworm) / GNOME?

[jbize@godswind.org]

I am running Debian 12 Bookworm (GNOME) and I have an old USB3 docking station (Plugable UD-3900) that requires the DisplayLink driver.

I have installed evdi-dkms, libevdi0, and libevdi0-dev (ver 1.12.0+dfsg-0.3) via apt. However, there is no bookworm package that provides a displaylink driver service. In fact, the evdi-dkms description warns that this is not a complete driver.

So how do I proceed? I've tried several different things, including the following:

• https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/displaylink-debian
• https://gitlab.gwdg.de/kayali/displaylink
• https://www.synaptics.com/products/d...ads/ubuntu-6.0

However, these fundamentally seem to all work from the same source: displaylink-driver-6.1.0-17.run

Executing that attempts to build evdi ver 1.14.7 which will not compile on Debian 12. The log shows many errors such as:

/var/lib/dkms/evdi/1.14.7/build/evdi_fb.c: In function ‘evdifb_create’:
/var/lib/dkms/evdi/1.14.7/build/evdi_fb.c:408:23: error: ‘struct drm_fb_helper’ has no member named ‘info’
  408 |         efbdev->helper.info = info;
      |                       ^

So clearly Debian 12 libraries are incompatible with the new version of 1.14.7.

• Is there another version of the driver package that will work?
• Has anyone gotten DisplayLink to work on Debian 12?
• Are there any other suggestions?

[jbize@godswind.org]

Well,

I kept plugging away and stumbled into the solution...

For anyone that's interested:

• I uninstalled the three evdi related packages via apt (evdi-dkms, libevdi0, and libevdi0-dev). (They're a red herring.)
• I downloaded the Legacy Driver 'DisplayLink USB Graphics Software for Ubuntu6.0-EXE.zip' from https://www.synaptics.com/products/d...wnloads/ubuntu
• I then unzipped it, made the .run file executable, and ran it with sudo.

That's all it took and my USB3 docking station works on my (stable) Debian 12 box.

[indynet]

I am the person who is interested. I've been disappointed with Debian repos before, but how can they allow this? Let's frustrate everyone with a pointless dead end because you have no need to know.
Thanks for the clarity, the original kind. Sad to see Ubuntu down the slide, but they have good archives.

I had to register after seeing this.

Originally Posted by jbize@godswind.org

Well,

I kept plugging away and stumbled into the solution...

For anyone that's interested:

• I uninstalled the three evdi related packages via apt (evdi-dkms, libevdi0, and libevdi0-dev). (They're a red herring.)
• I downloaded the Legacy Driver 'DisplayLink USB Graphics Software for Ubuntu6.0-EXE.zip' from https://www.synaptics.com/products/d...wnloads/ubuntu
• I then unzipped it, made the .run file executable, and ran it with sudo.

That's all it took and my USB3 docking station works on my (stable) Debian 12 box.

[indynet]

There is an answer to my question: the repo is proprietary, but still, the installation is 100% useless.