DisplayLink Snow Leopard 64-bit Support in Beta
Posted on 22. Mar, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in UGA-2K-A
DisplayLink has just released an updated beta OS X driver with Snow Leopard 64-bit support.
Previously, Snow Leopard users had to be careful to stick with a 32-bit kernel to use DisplayLink devices. This driver removes that limitation.
The beta drivers are available from DisplayLink here: http://displaylink.org/forum/showthread.php?t=268
These drivers work on all of Plugable’s laptop docking and graphics adapter products (UD-160-A and UGA-2K-A). Note that this driver is still in beta, and has limitations which are noted below in DisplayLink’s release notes.
DisplayLink Mac OS X Software Release: External Release Note
Version: 1.6b1 (23745)
Date: 18th March 2010
Improvements over the DisplayLink Mac OS X Software 1.5 release
* Snow Leopard (64 Bit) Support
More information on how to use this software can be found in the Mac OS X User Guide found on the DisplayLink website (http://www.displaylink.com/mac)
Supported Operating Systems
The DisplayLink software can be installed on any Intel-based desktop
or laptop Apple Mac computer running client versions of Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.2 (32 and 64 bit versions), Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 and Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11.
Note that at the time of writing these were the latest available versions of Mac OS X tested against.
Supported Mac platforms
This software supports all Intel-based Macs. It does not support Power-PC based Macs.
Known Issues
This is a DisplayLink driver release that supports 2D acceleration on Mac OS X platforms. This software has some limitations:
* No 3D (OpenGL) acceleration – some features of Mac OS X applications that require hardware OpenGL
acceleration, such as Keynote presentations and iPhoto slideshows, will not function properly.
* Colour calibration does not work with DisplayLink enabled displays on Mac OS X versions prior to 10.6.2
Note: Applications that require Quartz OpenGL hardware acceleration support will likely exhibit problems with this version of DisplayLink software. Some problems can be avoided by making sure the DisplayLink display is not set to be the main display (the display with the menu bar) If an application refuses to launch when a DisplayLink display is present, try to disconnect all the DisplayLink displays, then launch it and then reconnect the displays.
Picking the right filesystem across Win, Mac, and Linux
Posted on 16. Mar, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in Windows
Tuxera, a company that provides both open source and commercial filesystem drivers, announced the millionth download of NTFS for Mac today — that’s a large number, with many or most downloads being the free NTFS-3G solution.
We use NTFS-3G on Mac OS 10.4 here, in combination with the Plugable USB 2.0 SATA All-in-one Storage Dock and large TB+ SATA drives. Along with built-in NTFS support on Windows XP and up, and all recent Linux distros, this lets us easily swap a single USB cable between Windows, Mac, and Linux and have all three be able to read and write the drive(s).
Overall, this is a good solution for developers who have to span multiple platforms, for people who use boot camp to switch between Mac and Windows, or for increasingly common multi-platform offices that are using external storage docks for backup.
And it’s nice having a both an open source and a (better performing) commercially supported option.
It used to be that the venerable FAT32 filesystem was best way to format a drive to make sure you could easily read and write it from Windows, Mac, and Linux. But FAT32 has some limits that are especially problematic for today’s large drives 1 TB and up:
- Hard limit of 4GB on any individual file (think home movies of 30 mins or more)
- FAT32 needs large cluster size for large disks – which means wasted disk space in the case of many small files
- Partition size limits that can get as small as 32GB, and certainly hit at 2TB
There are various ways to read and write filesystems native to one OS on another. But there are also lots of pitfalls. All things considered, NTFS is the best compromise today.
For more background:
Upgraded Plugable Universal Docking Station
Posted on 06. Mar, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in Windows
The Plugable Universal Docking Station is getting some minor but nice upgrades to the latest chips for each function. All new units shipped from March 1, 2010 forward have these new features:
- Upgraded the DisplayLink DL-160 to the newer DL-165
- Previous maximum resolution was 1680×1050, now 1920×1080
- Moved from two 4-port NEC USB hubs internally to a single FE 2.1 7 port USB hub
- When using as a terminal, previously could daisy-chain 2 docks, now up to 4. All devices attached to the dock show on the same hub
- Upgraded ASIX AX88772 ethernet chip to newer AX88772A
- Auto-MDX support (automatically detects straight or cross-over cabling)
We’ve also shrunk the paper package size for less waste, and a have smaller connector for the (otherwise same) AC adapter.
The size and look of the docking station itself hasn’t changed, and all the same adapters, cables, and other hardware are included.
To the laptop docking station user on Windows or Mac, the changes won’t be immediately obvious, as the same drivers support both versions of hardware.
On Linux, both old and new chips have the same in-kernel support. In the terminal case, the USB configuration is now simpler (all devices are off the same USB hub), and that means a change in the udev rules for devices plugged into usb ports (keyboard and mouse are one hub less deep). Look for a future post on that.
So, with the new version, here’s the Windows Update experience you’ll see — without using any driver disks first, just plugging into a fresh Windows 7 machine with its own network connection up, letting it find and download drivers automatically.
Win7 first connect experience. Mouse and composite keyboard also attached
If you need to distinguish the versions from the outside (e.g. so you can make sure to give a newer one to someone who wants 1920×1080 resolution), the model number on the bottom of the older units all start with 0920J1.
Enjoy the upgrades on the new UD-160-A docking stations, and as always make use of our public problem reporting and support at http://getsatisfaction.com/plugable any time.
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