How do I use a DisplayLink monitor.doc

How do I use a DisplayLink monitor up vote 5 down vote favorite 1 share fb share tw I m trying to connect an external monitor to my laptop via a DisplayLink USB adapter When I plug in the USB cable the screen turns bright green This apparently indicates that the udflib displaylink driver is installed and has detected the USB driver according to http libdlo freedesktop org wiki displaylink mod All of the instructions I ve read on how to configure displaylink with ubuntu involve manually editing the xorg conf file but it seems like Ubuntu 11 04 with Unity handles xorg conf differently From what I can tell it either does not use it or places it in a different location Has anyone been able to get a displaylink powered monitor working on 11 04 11 04 xorg display feedback 3 Answers ACTIVE OLDEST VOTES up vote 1 down vote I got something working on Natty on a laptop with an Intel GPU Xinerama has to be off and the displaylink has to be the primary screen or the driver gets unloaded on startup The Intel was driving two screens and the displaylink was the third I say I got something working because I only got 2D no Unity and more importantly I couldn t move the mouse between the displaylink screen and the others it was stuck in whichever one it started in My menus and everything were still on the laptop screen Natty is fine if you use an etc X11 xorg conf file it s just that it doesn t need it for most cases as X autodetects lots of things these days This was in mine Section ServerLayout Identifier Layout0 Screen DisplayLinkScreen Screen Screen0 LeftOf Screen0 EndSection Section Monitor Identifier Monitor0 VendorName Unknown ModelName Unknown HorizSync 28 0 73 0 VertRefresh 43 0 72 0 Option DPMS EndSection Section Device Identifier Device0 Driver intel VendorName onboard BusID PCI 00 02 0 EndSection Section Screen Identifier Screen0 Device Device0 Monitor Monitor0 DefaultDepth 24 SubSection Display Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection DisplayLink Stuff Section Device Identifier DisplayLinkDevice driver displaylink Option fbdev dev fb1 EndSection Section Monitor Identifier DisplayLinkMonitor EndSection Section Screen Identifier DisplayLinkScreen Device DisplayLinkDevice Monitor DisplayLinkMonitor SubSection Display Depth 24 Modes 1680 x1050 EndSubSection EndSection link improve this answeranswered May 17 at 6 39 rocko 111 feedback up vote 1 down vote This answer pertains to Ubuntu 11 04 with an ATI radeon graphics card and the Diamond DisplayLink BVU 195 USB display adapter I finally got it working for three monitors I have an ATI radeon card with 1 DVI and 2 DisplayPort outputs but you can only use two at once and 1 Diamond DisplayLink BVU 195 USB adaptor You have to install the displaylink driver Then you have to write your own xorg conf file sudo apt get install xserver xorg video displaylink Here are three crucial points 1 I want to be able to move windows between displays That means that I cannot use xrandr Instead i have to enable something called Xinerama If you use the default xrandr option then only the mouse cursor can move between displays and programs cannot Not very usuable So Xinerama is a necessity 2 When configuring the ATI radeon driver the display is stuck as cloned across the two monitors that it uses unless you specify the ZaphodHeads option Valid options on my card are DVI 0 and DisplayPort 0 or DisplayPort 1 3 You have to configure all monitors as 16 bit If you stick with the default 24 bit the X server crashes 4 I only get blank screens if the USB monitor is plugged in when I boot I have to boot with it unplugged plug it in then log in only when the USB screen turns green Here is my xorg conf which I placed in etc X11 xorg conf The USB displaylink monitor is Screen0 and the DVI monitor connected to the ATI card is Screen1 and the DisplayPort monitor also connected to the ATI card via an adaptor is Screen2 Section ServerLayout Identifier X org Configured Screen 0 Screen0 0 0 Screen 1 Screen1 RightOf Screen0 Screen 2 Screen2 RightOf Screen1 InputDevice Mouse0 CorePointer InputDevice Keyboard0 CoreKeyboard Option Xinerama on EndSection Section Files ModulePath usr lib xorg modules FontPath usr share fonts X11 misc FontPath usr share fonts X11 cyrillic FontPath usr share fonts X11 100dpi unscaled FontPath usr share fonts X11 75dpi unscaled FontPath usr share fonts X11 Type1 FontPath usr share fonts X11 100dpi FontPath usr share fonts X11 75dpi FontPath var lib defoma x ttcidfont conf d dirs TrueType FontPath built ins EndSection Section Module Load dri Load record Load extmod Load dri2 Load dbe Load glx EndSection Section InputDevice Identifier Keyboard0 Driver kbd EndSection Section InputDevice Identifier Mouse0 Driver mouse Option Protocol auto Option Device dev input mice Option ZAxisMapping 4 5 6 7 EndSection Section Monitor Identifier Monitor0 VendorName Monitor Vendor ModelName Monitor Model EndSection Section Monitor Identifier Monitor1 VendorName Monitor Vendor ModelName Monitor Model EndSection Section Monitor Identifier Monitor2 VendorName Monitor Vendor ModelName Monitor Model EndSection Section Device Identifier DisplayLinkDevice driver displaylink Option fbdev dev fb1 EndSection Section Device Identifier Card0 Driver radeon BusID PCI 1 0 0 Screen 0 Option ZaphodHeads DVI 0 EndSection Section Device Identifier Card1 Driver radeon BusID PCI 1 0 0 Screen 1 Option ZaphodHeads DisplayPort 1 EndSection Section Screen Identifier Screen0 Device DisplayLinkDevice Monitor Monitor2 DefaultDepth 16 EndSection Section Screen Identifier Screen1 Device Card0 Monitor Monitor0 DefaultDepth 16 EndSection Section Screen Identifier Screen2 Device Card