USB 3.0 Displaylink DL-3000 series: DL-3100 / DL-3500 / DL-3900
 

Is anybody concerned about making it work under linux.
In Win8 (don' t know about Windows RT) it will be natively supported.

Also interested
 

I am also very much interested in the development of linux support for the DL-3000 series. On the homepage it says that linux support is scheduled for the "near future". Are there any ETAs?
Will this support also include the audio out?
Will it be incorporated into the existing udl driver in the kernel?

We don't have any ETAs at the moment, and still looking at the best path to do this. One issue is that the DL-3000 supports content protection and we need to ensure this remains secure under an open source environment.

Wim

no ETA? - bad info
 

that's a real bad info. windows-only-world is over. there're so many work-places with macs and linux-pcs (and even some others)...

has "content-protection" anything to do with DRM?

simply drop it if you can't open it. no one really needs it, but needs possibilities to connect to more than two monitors in hi-res

unfortunately I've bought a displaylink-device with a DL-3100 (only heard, that displaylink will run with linux) for CAD on a laptop and now I'm really annoyed with a nearly useless device...

Thanks for the response Wim!

That is very interesting information. Could you give some more insights into the paths and plans that you consider to support the DL-3000 on linux?

Apparently Dave Airlie from Red Hat is building the infrastructure to support USB display hotplugging. It would be great if this could be used on the DL-3000!

Also, I have to agree with knilyalpsid that probably very few linux users care about content protection.

thnld

updates?
 

Hi,

i'm also very interested in Linux support for the DL-3xxx chipsets.
Any update on the ETA jet?

regards,
gazpel

ps. +1 to the suggestion to drop content protection if that is a blocker for linux support. The possibility to connect multiple high-res displays and periphals to an ultrabook is what i need.

Update?
 

Hi,
I was wondering, with Xorg 1.13 out, it should be rather straight forward to support the DL-3000 on linux, right?
thnld

I'd also immediately benefit from this.

Lenovo is pushing the USB 3.0 ThinkPad dock, and ThinkPads are generally known for their good linux support. As it is, all the rest of the dock works perfectly out of the box except for the displaylink adapter.

Be awesome. The linux community (myself personally included) will go out our way to help.

I also have a USB 3.0 Lenovo dock with DVI ports I can't use because of this driver issue. Can we get an update please?

I have the Toshiba Dynadock U3. For me, only the USB hub and the ethernet works under linux, no audio and no video.

I have the Targus usb 3, and same thing: USB and ethernet work, but no video
(haven't tested audio yet)

I'd be happy to help. Where should one start ?

How is the progress on the driver development for USB 3.0 going?
I've spent ages searching the internets for an up to date repository with the source code for the current drivers. Does anyone know who is actively working on the linux drivers? Or who has last actively working on them and have access to the most up to date source code?
It seems there are many coders willing to help - but it's hard if we can't find the source code.

Tips anyone? The most recent code repository I found was about 1 year old.

Hi,

i have a Toshiba Dynadock USB3.0 docking station. As of all others, Ethernet and USB Hub is working, Audio and Display not.

I just have limited coding experience, but would be happy to help (testing etc).

Is there any eta? Would really love to use the displays with my Ubuntu nativly withoud needing to emulate it via VMware or similar...

Regards
waza

Very anxious to have linux support for this as well. :cool: :rolleyes:

I am another customer who already bought a Lenovo USB 3 dock - anticipating that DisplayLink would be supported by Ubuntu. I am very disappointed that apparently there are no plans to add support for this platform.
In particular, I feel cheated because I trusted your FAQ entry:

"Does it work with Linux?

An open source driver is available, which is now built into the Linux kernel. Linux support for DisplayLink devices is supported by the Linux community."

I should have followed the links to find a 2 years dead project...

I use Linux as a professional since 8+ years and I personally couldn't care less about DRM, as I never watch any media over the display. I would appreciate, however, being able to use my text editor and browser with my dock. Right now it is only a 200$ brick providing the same functionality as my 25$ usb-ethernet adapter.

If this is a question of money - let us know. I would donate you 100$ for a working driver right away, and I will not be the only one

Regards

No
 

I have bought a couple of the UD165 chips for personal and corporate users. I'm happy I didn't buy the Dl3XXX yet. I will buy the UD3000 from plugable I guess when you have drivers for the only sane operating system (guess you got the hint).

I too am waiting for a linux driver for the DL-3xxx Series
 

I do have a work around ( I have a windows vm that I pass the usb device through ) but I can only get usb 2.x speeds on it and would LOVE to have direct support, even a rough eta would be helpful. Also an open source driver would be prefered, but even a propriatary bianary only driver for ubuntu would be at least an improvement

waiting for linux support too
 

+1

I've been following the Pluggable site for a while, hoping to see some "official" support for Linux. I'm another biz user with 100% Linux shop...

No Linux Support?!
 

I am yet another Linux user, and I picked up a Plugable USB 3.0 Laptop Docking Station...only to discover belatedly that there are no Linux drivers.

I also don't care at all whether it supports HDMI content protection. Since it's impossible to get a commercial BluRay player on Linux regardless, there's no point in worrying about supporting it on Linux at all.

So can someone please post an ETA for drivers without DRM support?

Another Linux user here who would like to use DisplayLink... Any time lines?

This is the only way to get more than one external monitor on an linux ultrabook like Lenovo's X1 Carbon. Kickstarter this if you have to - this needs to happen.

Yup, I'd pay for this.

Sorry to disappoint - we can't promise USB 3.0 compatibility with linux any time soon. In the meantime, if linux OS support for hotpluggable monitors using our USB 2.0 technology gets better, it would help to incentivise USB 3.0 support!

We have many products available which should allow an X1 to have extra screens, just not USB 3.0 currently.

Unfortunately the Lenovo USB 3.0 Hub is the thing I actually have :/

Is there anything I can to do to help?

Bummer. Your website still states that linux support for usb3 is coming 'in the near future' though (but it's been that way for more than 6 months now):

My current impression is that you estimate a very low demand for a linux solution and thus do not put any resources behind it. I kind of like the Idea to use crowdfunding to solve this.

Also, did you reach out to the linux community to ask for improvements/help? With the advent of Ultrabooks with usb3.0 i acutally see some demand, especially for the road-warrior/developer type which is typically also found among linux developers.

I really believe that if they'd just release the specs of the device to the world there'd be a driver in no time. My bet is that the they bought there "content protection" from a third party, which does not want it's tech disclosed (or maybe the the code's license used implementing the DRM is not GPL compatible). My prediction is that there will never be a open source drive available for that device series.

But I'd love to be proven wrong.

Spit in our eyes why don't you
 

Your USB2.0 technology it already works perfectly in many multi-seat uses, thank you very much. There's no need to improve it for many people, and it's mudslinging to tell us to work your product harder when it already does work and is enjoyed.

That said, huge amounts of work have been poured into very modern reworks, namely systemd's multiseat configuration. If that doesnt incentivize you, motivate you, I have no hope anything will. Your post seems to confirm that I ought not have any hope for DisplayLink caring about Linux or open source, and you seem unaware of the work that is being invested.

You tell us to plug in more monitors, yet the only OS which supports multi-seat in a serious way you do not support, do not release any docs for, have out and out told us you are going to ignore. :eek:

Good luck to you. I- we all here- wish you cared, wish we could use your products, in a massive way no one else ever will have interest in, but you've said you don't care about us, and won't do anything to help us. :confused:
----


DisplayLink: :(

What product would you recommend? I see that you list these products as certified, and note that none of the DL-3xxx products will work with Macs either. It also looks like both the dual monitor devices are USB 3.0 based. Are there any certified dual monitor DL-2xxx products? Any non-certified dual monitor DL-2xxx products that you're aware of?

Would DL-2xxx adapters work connected to a USB 3.0 hub - as in, for the time being, could I use any USB 3.0 hub (such as the Lenovo dock) with a DL-2xxx based adapter that supports dual monitors or (worse) two DL-2xxx adapters with one monitor each?

I'm still all for finding a way to get support for DL-3xxx for linux, but I'd certainly be happier if there's a recommended way for linux to have two external displaylink monitors off one of USB port right now.

So, after I bought an USB3 Dock for my X1 based on your FAQ entry that Linux is supported, you tell me to buy another product from you? big chance - I will never trust you again, that is. Get your programmers to meet your promises you make on your website!

I recently purchased a Targus ACP71USZ and I'd also love it if Linux support was added for the DL-3xxx series! I'd also be willing to donate some $$ to make this happen.

Thanks rektide - we have worked closely with Userful and Plugable for example to help multiseat USB work well on linux. As you say USB 2.0 provides a pretty good solution here.

Sorry if you took my remark to be mudslinging.


You are right on the ball - multiseat on Linux is much better than the Microsoft solution.

My comments were about hotpluggable multiscreen support on Linux being a bit poor.


Well life is complicated. We worked very hard with the USB-IF to produce the USB A/V spec, but that wasn't finished until after we'd made the USB 3.0 chip. We hope to support it with a FW update at some point in the future, but it's very hard to know when currently.

It has long been a desire to enable our ASIC designers to use the technology they are developing to have multiple USB screens on their linux desktops! Unfortunately we're not quite there yet.

I can understand your frustration.

You can plug in as many DL-1x5 adapters as will fit on the bus (in fact we've had some embedded customers using linux plug in very large numbers). However, you may have to be creative to get hotplugging screens useful on linux (other than for multiseat).

If you check the other forums here, you'll see we've just released Alpha Mac drivers for DL-3xxx.

You can of course plug USB 2.0 devices into a USB 3.0 hub, but you won't see any performance increase.

Linux Support
 

I also have a Thinkpad, in part because of it's Linux support. Bought a ThinkPad USB 3.0 Dock to support my peripherals at the office and am disappointed to find that it doesn't support my external monitor with built-in speakers. Does support external keyboard, mouse, gigabit network, etc.
Please make Linux support a priority.

I also have a Thinkpad, in part because of it's Linux support. Bought a ThinkPad USB 3.0 Dock to support my peripherals at the office and am disappointed to find that it doesn't support my external monitor with built-in speakers. Does support external keyboard, mouse, gigabit network, etc.
Please make Linux support a priority.

So here's the problem.

We had exactly the same back in 2008 for our DL-1x5 chips. So we did development to enable these on Linux and released the driver into the community. This wasn't a complete solution, as there are many variants of Linux and the graphics architecture was not suited to multiple displays in the same way Windows already was. But the information and example drivers released gave all the tools needed to create a driver and a solution on Linux. If there was enough demand for DisplayLink technology on Linux, all the tools were enabled for the community to do it.

Fast forward 5 years, and DisplayLink technology and the graphics architecture issues on Linux still has issues, as this recent post from Plugable shows. It slowly gets better, but it still does not "just work" without bugs and a lot of configuration. It seems the demand on Linux is not there currently, otherwise if it was really desired, the work would have been done to improve this by the community.

As the Linux community hasn't adopted multiple displays or created "easy to use" DisplayLink drivers for the DL-1x5 chips, justifying the work we would have to do to enable DL-3xxx support on Linux is difficult. So if you want to help show there is demand for DL-3xxx Linux drivers, making drivers stable and easy to use for the DL-1x5 family and showing demand for these USB 2.0 products on Linux first would be the catalyst to get DL-3xxx family support on Linux.

Ourselves and Plugable want to see our devices working on Linux. If you want to help develop this support for the DL-1x5 and show that there would also be demand for the DL-3xxx, then Plugable and running a hardware seeding program here:

http://plugable.com/projects/plugabl...amples-program

Wim

I agree that the driver for the DL-1x5 chips that was released is/was limited to some extent. However, the fact that Fedora 18 has actually made these devices plug and play (Ubuntu's latest release has not yet, I don't think) is actually a good amount of progress, IMO, and I believe others would agree.

As these devices are not a critical system component, it is understandable that development lags behind drivers for other such components (integrated sound and video, for example). We certainly don't need some sort of finished and polished driver that works with every *nix system out there, but it would be ideal to have that base from which others in the open source community can improve upon!

Sadly my field is not in video processing, otherwise I would enroll in Pluggable's program. Even so, it feels like the burden is put on the community to reverse engineer a product when the developers have all the tools needed to get a decent solution out to the community to begin with...

2008 was two years before the first USB 3.0 products, three years before Intel announced their push for ultrabooks and trademarked the word "ultrabook" itself. Ubuntu was only just becoming mainstream in 2007 and 2008, and the second most popular distro at the time, Fedora, did add support for the DL-1x5.

Five years later, its 2013. Companies like Lenovo are pushing ultrabooks and completely dropped availability of their USB 2.0 dock. These companies are relying on USB 3.0 and DisplayLink for parity with Thunderbolt.

Congratulations! You've got a vice-like hold on an entire workflow.

Saying "Maybe we'll support the current generation products if you go back and add better support for the products that are being end-of-life'd" is at best busy work.

I understand your (very defensive) rationale. You want to get support for your driver for free from the community, without investing too much effort. You do not see the potential of embedded/thin devices running Linux, that is your choice.
But my personal problem is that you are still not stating clearly on your webpage that DL-3xxx devices will not be supported for a long time. I bought a device using your technology relying on your information on your website which said that "An open source driver is available, which is now built into the Linux kernel. Linux support for DisplayLink devices is supported by the Linux community." Given that there was very little information about the DL-3xxx chip with Linux at that time anywhere on the net, I had to rely on this.
Thus, I bought the Lenovo USB3 dock believing your FAQ statement to be true (and applying to this dock). Many people in this thread did the same. Be more honest on your website, then less people will feel scammed. Don't point towards long dead projects websites without updates. This thread is a good start - but more proactive communication would help. Posting this rationale earlier would also have helped raising interest into your issues without angering customers with bricks on their desks.

This is disappointing.

I arrived at this thread towards the end of a search for solution.

Canonical are launching an Ubuntu phone at the end of February.
To be able to dock this as a PC would be a huge boon for business.

This should be evident to DisplayLink and promises a huge opportunity.

http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone

Please reconsider support for linux.

disappointing
 

Exactly!
If possible i will return mine ASAP. Guess word will go out into the community now, that DisplayLink is officially *NOT* supporting linux....

PS: i needed like 20 attempts to comple registration - these images are completly unreadable - hope someone will write a tool soon, which can decipher these catpchas - becaue i as a human certainly can't...