Warning for anyone interested in DisplayLink and Open Source Software or Linux

DisplayNothing · 07-06-2013, 10:25 AM

Despite Displaylink's prominent looking Windows/Mac/Linux sections on their site they don't actually care in the least about linux users.

I just wanted to post here to warn any potential customers of displaylink that if you buy a displaylink product with the intention of using it on linux, you will spend hours suffering and if you're in the 2% of lucky people with thousands of linux geek hours under your belt and a lot of free time, you might get it working, but otherwise you'll just have to give up.

I've bought 2 of these monitors and I might as well throw them in the bin.
I could keep them until displaylink decides to release working linux drivers, but by then these monitors will be obsolete so its basically a complete waste of money.

Incase this sounds like I might be exaggerating try heading over to the linux section shown prominently on displaylink.org's site to find a bunch of web pages put up by linux enthusiasts who, without any funding from displaylink have put in an obscene number of hours to get their displaylink products that they purchased functioning. You'll find the information is extremely old and outdated, and most of the guides don't even exist anymore. The links are dead.

So in summary...
Interested in Linux or open source?
Don't consider Display Link. Move on.

07-06-2013, 10:25 AM	#1
DisplayNothing Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 1	Warning for anyone interested in DisplayLink and Open Source Software or Linux Despite Displaylink's prominent looking Windows/Mac/Linux sections on their site they don't actually care in the least about linux users. I just wanted to post here to warn any potential customers of displaylink that if you buy a displaylink product with the intention of using it on linux, you will spend hours suffering and if you're in the 2% of lucky people with thousands of linux geek hours under your belt and a lot of free time, you might get it working, but otherwise you'll just have to give up. I've bought 2 of these monitors and I might as well throw them in the bin. I could keep them until displaylink decides to release working linux drivers, but by then these monitors will be obsolete so its basically a complete waste of money. Incase this sounds like I might be exaggerating try heading over to the linux section shown prominently on displaylink.org's site to find a bunch of web pages put up by linux enthusiasts who, without any funding from displaylink have put in an obscene number of hours to get their displaylink products that they purchased functioning. You'll find the information is extremely old and outdated, and most of the guides don't even exist anymore. The links are dead. So in summary... Interested in Linux or open source? Don't consider Display Link. Move on.