Mirror Display on Linux with Intel GPU

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Howdy All,

I’d really like to buy one of these adapters, but I need to know it can do one thing first.

I need the video output it displays to mirror want is on my internal display. I have an Intel GPU at 1366x768. I’m not afraid to manually edit configuration files and all that if it is needed - I just need to know I can have a mirror display on my OS of choice before forking out 65$ for this adapter :slight_smile:

Thanks!
~Jeff Hoogland

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Hi Jeff,

Thanks for posting! Mirror is a built-in function on Windows, but unfortunately it’s not possible in any kind of performant way (as far as I know) on Linux.

What will happen on Linux (recent kernels) is you’ll get a new framebuffer device /dev/fb* for our adapter.

But then getting X or another framebuffer to mirror to that new framebuffer isn’t a built-in capability.

But this is Linux – in the end, anything is possible. So the fact that I don’t know how, doesn’t mean there isn’t a way. But I’d search around first to find anyone who has mirrored to any arbitrary framebuffer, before buying the device and trying it in practice.

And let us know if you do find that it is possible - that would be great to know!

Hope that helps. Thanks again for asking ahead!
Bernie

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Thanks for the prompt reply. I guess I’ll have to do some more searching around to see if what you suggest is possible without breaking things.

So currently on Linux how does the device work, simply as a new X display?

~Jeff

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Hi Jeff,

Unfortunately, the situation on Linux isn’t nearly as nice as Windows. It operates as easily as an independent X display or for any framebuffer client, but Linux doesn’t have the same infrastructure as Windows for extended mode (or mirror mode) functionality, as people would normally expect …

That’s why we generally try to steer Linux users away from our product for multiple display use (and focus in on multiuser-terminals), even though an open source driver is right there in the kernel (since 2.6.31).

Best wishes,
Bernie

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Thanks again for the speedy input. Still digging around online and made some posts on a few message boards. I’ll be sure to post here if I figure anything out.

~Jeff

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