2 ext monitor and eth wuth TBT3-DP2X + USB-C Docking for Linux

Hi all,

I would like to use two external monitors and Ethernet cable connection with a XPS 13 running Ubuntu LTS 16.04.

I read around that the Plugable USB-C Docking Station with the DisplayLink driver does not work well with Linux (please correct me if something has changed).

As an alternative, do you think that connecting a Plugable TBT3-DP2X-83 to a Plugable USB-C Docking Station for Linux would do the trick?

Thanks
Gihon

Hi Gihon,

Thanks for posting!

While Plugable officially supports Linux with many of our products, we do not support Linux with our DisplayLink-based USB docking stations (like the UD-ULTCDL) or our Thunderbolt 3 Dual Display Adapters (like the TBT3-DP2X-83). Apologies if that sounds overly negative, but we like to set honest expectations up front to help prevent frustration later on.

Even if used with a Windows system the configuration you describe would not work, as you cannot plug a Thunderbolt 3 device (the TBT3-DP2X-83 adapter) into a USB-C docking station like the UD-ULTCDL.

As alternative, we do offer our single display UD-CA1A docking station -> http://plugable.com/products/ud-ca1a/ that is compatible with Linux (it uses USB-C VESA Alt Mode to work).

Thank you!

Bob
Plugable Technologies
www.plugable.com/support

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the response.

I have a TBT3-DP2X and it worked out of the box with Ubuntu 16.04 on XPS 13.

For the UD-CA1A you mentioned, it looks great and is the one I thought to buy. It has additional USBs, Ethernet plug, but only 1 monitor. As I need 2 external monitor, this may not be the right option for me. Any plan to release a linux-compatible docking station with dual monitor support?

Gihon

Hi Gihon,

Thanks for getting back, and glad to hear that the TBT3-DP2X adapter worked properly on your Ubuntu system. We have had similar reports that the adapter can work with Linux, but there can be instances where things may not work as expected so we disclaim Linux support to prevent customer frustration.

Unfortunately, at this time we don’t offer any dual monitor-capable docks that we support within a Linux environment. While we hope this will change in the future, we don’t have any specific details to share today.

Sorry we don’t have a solution to offer in this specific case!

Bob