Howto: DisplayLink USB Single Monitor on Linux
Posted on 23. Dec, 2011 by jerome in Using
Unfortunately, Linux doesn’t support multiple graphics adapters the way Windows does, which means you can’t just plug in USB graphics adapters and expect them to extend your desktop (the good news is there is progress on this support).
What is possible, however, is running a single DisplayLink adapter, or several with a Xinerama or multiseat configuration — just as long as you don’t expect to use your main GPU at the same time.
The single-display case is relatively easy to set up, and we’ll cover that here.
First, make sure you’re running kernel version 2.6.35 or later (Ubuntu 10.10 or later). For older kernel versions, you’ll need to update udlfb and run a modified fbdev X server (not covered in this post). On these kernel versions, when you plug in your DisplayLink-based USB graphics device, you should get a green screen. This means that at the driver built into the Linux kernel is happy, healthy, and talking to the device.
Second, if you are running Unity Desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 or later, you’ll need to switch back to Classic Mode so you’re running straight X. Here’s how on Ubuntu:
Click on the power button in the upper right corner (mine looks like a light switch) and choose the last option, System Settings. Search for Login Screen, Double-click to display, Choose Unlock and enter your password, Select Ubuntu Classic as default session.
Third, if you’re running kernel versions between 2.6.35 to 3.1, enable the fb_defio option of udlfb. To do this, create or edit a file like
/etc/modprobe.d/50-displaylink.conf
and add the single line
options udlfb fb_defio=1
And reboot (or run “sudo depmod -a” and unplug/replug your adapter). This will turn on defio (page fault change detection) support. This option is already enabled by default in kernels 3.2+.
Lastly, create an X config file called 60-plugable.conf (or similar) with the following contents and place it in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d (on recent distros; on older distros, make this your xorg.conf):
Section "Device" Identifier "uga" driver "fbdev" Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "monitor" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "screen" Device "uga" Monitor "monitor" EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "default" Screen 0 "screen" 0 0 EndSection
Note: if your main GPU creates a /dev/fb0 even when the USB display is not attached, then your USB display is probably getting assigned to /dev/fb1. In that case, change /dev/fb0 in the “Device” section above to /dev/fb1
Now, on reboot, you should (hopefully!) see your login come up on your DisplayLink USB attached display!
This kind of simple setup is useful for:
- Testing or playing with your USB graphics adatper on Linux.
- Embedded systems with USB but no GPU.
- As a backup method when the main GPU or its driver isn’t available or working.
- Systems where a USB graphics adapter enables higher modes (up to 2048×1152) than the main GPU screen.
Please comment if you have any trouble with this single display case. See our past posts for additional information about the DisplayLink Linux kernel driver and some more involved setups.
The instructed here work on all Plugable USB 2.0 graphics adapters and Plugable USB 2.0 docking stations and thin clients (and should also generally work on all DisplayLink based products).
Howto: Installing ASIX’s USB Gigabit Ethernet Driver on Mac OS X Lion 10.7
Posted on 27. Jul, 2011 by Bernie Thompson in USB2-E1000
If you plug one of our Plugable USB2-E1000 USB 2.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapters or others based on the ASIX 88178 chipset into an Mac Lion system, Apple will match it with the Apple Gigabit Ethernet driver that’s included in Lion.
Unfortunately, Apple limits compatibility to Apple brand adapters (even though they use the same ASIX chipset). And it fails on non-Apple adapters in a confusing way: it will show as “Connected” in the Network control panel, but connections out won’t work — you’ll notice it has a self-assigned IP address (169.*), no router, and no DNS server. It looks something like this:
Fortunately, ASIX has an updated driver which works on Lion (and older versions). Note that if you had done this before upgrading to Lion, your old driver may be 32-bit. Lion moves all systems to a 64-bit kernel, so in the case of a Lion upgrade, you may have to uninstall the old driver (uninstaller included in the driver package), and follow the steps below to get ASIX’s latest driver.
Download the Plugable USB2-E1000 (ASIX 88178 chipset) driver.
If you’re downlading with Safari, look for the Download folder the Lion has in your Dock by default. Click on that to bring up recent downloads, which looks like this:
Open that folder, then click on the “.dmg” to open the ASIX driver installer disk image.
The image then shows up on the left side of the window, below your other drives, called “DISK IMAGE”. Click on this to open the image, then click on the installer (the icon with the package opening).
You’re finally out of Lion’s folders and into the installer proper.
The ASIX 88178 driver isn’t big (254K)
You will be prompted to let the driver install.
A reboot is required for the newly installed driver to be active.
After the reboot, if you open the Network control panel, you should now see “Connected”, but now also with a properly assigned IP address, DNS, etc.
If that’s not the case (or something goes awry later), it’s common on Mac OS X to need a fresh interface for the adapter, which you can create via the network control panel (this creates a new, clean configuration for an adapter). See the ASIX Mac installation guide for details.
And once you have that automatically assigned IP address, you should be done – open Safari and enjoy!
And if you have a Plugable adapter and have any problems at all, we’re here to help. Visit support.plugable.com or email support@plugable.com anytime. Thanks!
Where to Buy
 |
Plugable USB 2.0 to 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter (ASIX AX88178 Chipset) | Product Details | $26.95 |  |
Installing a USB Serial Adapter on Mac OS X
Posted on 12. Jul, 2011 by Bernie Thompson in Tips
The easiest way to go about installing our Plugable USB to Serial adapter is by starting with the device.
- If you want to verify that the adapter and the driver were installed properly click here
Connect the device to the Mac. Once connected click on the Apple icon and on ‘About This Mac’
Click on ‘More Info…’
Click on ‘USB’ on the left and on the ‘USB-Serial Controller D’
If all is well you should be seeing something like this:
Time to get the driver! Fire up Safari and browse to http://plugable.com/drivers/prolific/ and scroll down to Mac.
Click on the ‘PL2303 MacOSX10.6 dmg v.1.4.0.zip’, the Safari Downloads window should come up:
Double click on the md_PL23-3_MacOSX10
Now double click on the PL2303_1.4.0.dmg to mount the image
Now double click on the PL2303_1.4.0 to start the installation
Once the installer comes up click ‘Continue’ to proceed.
Then ‘Select a Destination’ click on your desired drive and click ‘Continue’ to move forward
Now just click ‘Install’ to continue.
You may be asked of your username and password – enter them and click ‘OK’
You’ll get a warning about restarting the computer after the installation is complete. This is normal, click ‘Continue Installation‘.
Installing should start (takes a couple of minutes to complete)
When it’s done you should see this:
Click on ‘Restart’ to reboot the Mac.
After you restart, check that everything has installed OK.
On the Mac there are two methods to determine this:
Method 1:
Click on ‘Applications’
Click on ‘Utilities’
Click on ‘Terminal’
Type:
kextstat | grep prolific
and:
ioreg -c IOSerialBSDClient | grep usb
Your results should be very close to this:
Method 2:
Click on ‘System Preferences’
Click on ‘Network’
Now click on the ‘+’ sign on the bottom left, and then on the ‘Select the interface and enter a name for the new Service’ click on ‘Interface’ – you should be seeing the ‘USB-Serial Controller D’ there.
This will create a “Network” interface for a modem or serial port. Because it’s a serial port, it’ll say “Not Configured” and that’s normal:
From the “Advanced” button you can change default settings (usually not needed). And this won’t change the “Not Configured” message – that’s still ok.
Now finally, you need an application which will talk to the serial port. On Mac, the file which maps to the port is /dev/cu.usbserial. If you have a null modem cable and a terminal program on the other side, the Mac actually has a built-in terminal program called “screen” that you can use to test the connection.
Once that is up and connected (and if the serial ports are set to the same baud rate and paramters), you can type on either side and see the characters come across.
Support
USB Serial on the Mac is a real melding of the very new and very old. If you have any trouble, just visit plugable.com/products/pl2303-db9/support/ to see existing FAQs for Plugable’s USB Serial adapter.
Where to Buy
 |
Plugable USB to RS-232 DB9 Serial Adapter (Prolific PL2303HX Chipset) | Product Details | $11.95 | |
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