Ubuntu – Using a DisplayLink USB video adapter on Ubuntu 12.10

12.10displaydisplaylinkusbvideo

The line of USB video adapters made by DisplayLink has a somewhat sordid history under Linux. In past Ubuntu releases, the process of getting them to work has been somewhat difficult, inspiring a number of past questions on this site:

example 1
example 2
example 3

However, there are some indications that version 3.5 of the Linux kernel (which is used by 12.10) contains better support for these adapters, which should make them easier to use. I currently have a single-GPU machine (it is an Nvidia adapter) with dual monitor outputs. I would like to add the DisplayLink adapter to drive a third external monitor. How can I set this up on Ubuntu 12.10?

Best Answer

I just added "blacklist udl" to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-custom.conf

and commented out "blacklist udlfb" from /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf

This was enough to get the monitor to display the green screen of success.

After that it's just a matter of setting up xorg.conf in the same way as previous Ubuntu versions.

Related Question