Inconsistent functionality with new M1 Macbook air

[dpapathanasiou]

I have a brand-new macbook air (M1 chip) running Big Sur (version 11.1), and I wanted to connect it to a wide 49" monitor.

The hdmi connection did not support the 5k (5120x1440) resolution I wanted, so I bought a usb-c to displayport cable from cable matters.

Plugging it in had no effect, but the cable matters site suggested installing the mac os driver, which redirected me here, to the DisplayLink Manager 1.2 package.

Installing that seemed to work initially, but sometimes after a cold boot, the monitor goes unrecognized.

Plugging in the cable and checking the system hardware shows that the usb cable is recognized (first screenshot), but the DisplayLink Manager says "no monitor detected" (second screenshot).

Pulling the usb cable out and back in eventually *does* work (third screenshot), but it's frustrating that it's so random.

Even when the 5k monitor is working, the DisplayLink Manager insists "no monitor detected".

Is there a way I can get this working more predictably?

I have a linux laptop which just works using that same cable and monitor, no driver needed.

Ideally I'd like to have that working the same way with my mac.