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Old 02-13-2016, 05:19 PM   #1
nicks3123
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Join Date: Feb 2016
Posts: 2
Default Dell XPS 15" + Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS + Dell D3100 Docking Station - Got it to work.

Got it to "work" - more or less. This may or may not work for everyone, but it's working for my set up as of now. I've read a lot of the threads here and had a lot of the same issues that people seem to be having with it.

Initially, I set up the docking station, plugged in two external monitors, plus everything else and booted into Ubuntu. I downloaded and installed the DisplayLink driver and it installed without error. All of the docking station peripherals began to work right away (network, audio, keyboard/mouse and USB.) But Ubuntu could not see either of the external monitors under System Settings -> Displays.

One of the threads I read mentioned something about Ubuntu + D3100 didn't like the 2 external monitors. By a stroke of luck, I happened to have one of the monitors disconnected from the dock when I booted into Ubuntu one time. When this happened, the single monitor was detected and turned on. Under the display settings I was able to configure both the laptop screen and the single monitor plugged into the dock. So that was a start. From there, I was able to play around with it and figure out a certain "sequence" to get the everything to play together nicely. I did the following:
  1. Boot into Ubuntu with only one external monitor plugged into the docking station.
  2. Launch System Settings -> Displays
  3. If your laptop has a 4k UHD display, switch the laptop screen resolution down to a resolution that's closer to the external monitors' resolutions. (I believe that the 4k resolution of the laptop screen may have been part of the issue, so I switched it to 1920x1080 HD which is closer to the 1680x1050 resolution of the monitors.)
  4. Move the launcher icons to the external monitor and turn OFF the built-in display.
  5. Plug in the second external monitor and it should turn on. Adjust the display settings as needed from there.
  6. Launch System Settings -> Power to configure the laptop to "do nothing" (stay on) when the lid is closed so you can go into clamshell mode.

It's obviously not as clean and easy as on the Windows 10 side, but at least it appears to be working for now when I follow those steps.

So while this isn't anything that's confirmed, it seems that the combination of the Dell XPS 15" UHD laptop + Ubuntu + the D3100 Docking Station doesn't like the 4k resolution and doesn't like both of the monitors plugged in on boot. It seems the workaround solution is to step through the above sequence to get Ubuntu and the docking station to work together.

I hope this helps. Good Luck!
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