Does the UGA-2K-A work with Fedora 17

Discontinued Products UGA-2K-A
1

I am keen to buy the UGA-2K-A to be used with my laptop with is running Fedora 17 (beta). I’ve got the USB 2.0 docking station already and the multi-seat works like a charm with F17, hence the question.

Thanks.

Harish

2

Hi Harish,

It’s great to hear from you! Thanks so much for putting up a paragraph about your experiences using the USB multiseat support with F17! (http://harishpillay.wordpress.com/201… )

We’d love to hear more. Please let us know if you write more about the experience and/or have any additional photos of your setup. We’d love to see it, and I know people are hungry for honest experiences of early adopters.

Now, to your question on multi-monitor (not multiseat): In short, unfortunately, no.

The UGA-2K-A, like all our USB 2.0 graphics adapters, is supported at the kernel level by all recent Linux kernels (by the udlfb framebuffer driver). However, multi-adapter multi-monitor support in Linux is not at the same level as Windows yet, so configuration requires xorg.conf editing which is for very advanced users only – and still many combinations of things don’t work as expected.

The multiseat case in Fedora works so well, because a single xorg.conf for a single monitor can be automatically generated each time a thin client arrives - but it does not handle the case of additional USB graphics controllers attached to the thin client. It does not have automatic multi-monitor support.

So we can’t recommend any of our USB graphics adapters for multiple monitor use on Linux today. It’s just too difficult to configure.

But we are really excited about the automatic USB multiseat case with one monitor, because this can work with no user configuration whatsoever - and it’s a interesting leap in possibilities for low-cost computing and Linux.

Hope that background helps.

Thanks again for posting about your experiences!
Bernie

3

Could you provide the xorg conf info required to make this work? I purchased one of these because it said it had linux kernel support, I didn’t read the fine print of needing more… I’m not against doing the xorg conf editing but would like some documentation on how exactly to get it to work.

I’m running fedora 17. My e-mail address is sontek@gmail.com if you want to send me an e-mail about what is needed.

4

Hi Sontek - Thanks for posting.

Getting the USB display working so it is the only monitor is not hard on Fedora 17. Here’s how:
http://plugable.com/2011/12/23/usb-gr…

However, getting it to work in an extended desktop configuration with the built-in graphics is not easy. There are a lot of options to get there, but none of them work 100% of the time … with Fedora 17.

But it’s looking like the pieces may be coming together for a more robust solution in Fedora 18. Here’s the background:
http://www.h-online.com/open/features…

So I hope that information helps. The multiple monitor story is not yet easy on Fedora 17 (multiseat is cool though). But it’s not for lack of drivers - it’s the higher level pieces of the stack that have to come together.

Best wishes,
Bernie

5

For those interested in what’s coming in the next version of xorg and distros, here’s some more background:
http://keithp.com/blogs/hotplug-displ…

Keith hasn’t had a chance to update the post, but we sent him some Plugable adapters, and it seems like that resolved the edid problem he was seeing …

6

Big news chaps, the plugable usb 2.0 UGA adapter, model UGA-2K-A) is plug and play with Fedora 18. Currently typing this on a Lenovo Carbon X1 with a Dell 1920x1200 monitor connected via USB2 and the plugable adapter converting this to DVI . This is my left hand monitor. On the right I have a Dell 1920x1080 monitor connected via the built in mini-dvi port on the Lenovo and using the lenovo supplied converter to output this to VGA.
Its fiddly to setup, first boot into the Laptop screen with no monitors connected. Next attach the Plugable USB2 to DVI adapter and Dell monitor fired right up. Next I attached the monitor to the mini-dvi port and after some flickering, the VGA monitor also came up. Now I actually had all 3 displays up. Now use settings to turn off laptop monitor and viola! 2 external monitors running, 1 on USB2!

7

Thanks so much for the positive report on F18, Tim!!!

We also installed the final Fedora 18 release here and hope to do some blog posts soon with some video, performance tips, and any other info we dig up.

Thanks again!
Bernie

8

hello there,

I am using the adapter on fedora 18 a (virtual machine) with external display … so I have two monitors… when I enable the monitor (plug it) while loading I get an X as the mouse on the left screen and I can move it and the right screen has the startup of the OS, but I cannot use the mouse on the right screen! any idea how can I fix that?