Use DisplayLink monitor as the primary monitor

1

I got AOC USB monitor with DisplayLink in it and want to use it as my primary monitor instead of the onboard video card on my system. Is it possible to see all the boot up message and POST message on the USB monitor ?

2

I forgot to specify that I’m using Ubuntu system…

3

Hi Jason,

Thanks for asking. Unfortunately, we can only support our own Plugable brand products.

But a quick answer that’s generally applicable to DisplayLink devices is – you can use the USB monitor for Linux boot (if udlfb option console=1) and GUI (see http://plugable.com/2011/12/23/usb-gr…).

But for BIOS POST, there is no way - today’s BIOS doesn’t know how to talk to USB graphics devices. For the future, it may be possible to write a UEFI driver for USB graphics devices. And there’s been some work on that. But nothing that’s productized yet.

So, in short, USB graphics devices as your (only) primary display are only viable if you’re ok with not seeing anything happening at BIOS post. I’ve run systems like this and it’s not bad, as long as I can drag over a VGA monitor for the (rare) cases where interacting with the BIOS is needed.

Let us know if you ever need any Plugable product - we’d be happy to help.

Thanks!
Bernie

4

Thanks for your reply…

Yes I’m ok with not seeing BIOS post… I will try it as you suggested. One more question though… What about GRUB2 menu? Is it possible to see the grub menu on USB monitor like kernel bootup message? Do you have any insight on it?

5

Hi Jason - grub2 has a model for creating drivers, so I think it might be possible, but no one has done that porting work.

6

Hi Bernie,

http://plugable.com/products/usb3-hdm…

Looks like Plugable USB 3.0 graphic adapter DOSE NOT support Linux ? So I cannot use DisplayLink monitor as the primary monitor on Linux?