For those that have been waiting — thank you for your patience!

Improvements in the new UGA-2K-A adapters include:

• Updated USB plug and play ID and strings unique to the Plugable UGA-2K-A
• Fix for a voltage problem with DVI connected monitors that occasionally required unplugging both USB and DVI to reset the device
• Groundwork laid for compliance with the “DisplayLink Certified” program

And all the great software compatibility features are the same, including automatic detection, download, and install of drivers via Microsoft’s Windows Update system for Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Mac and Linux compatibility are the same (see product page for limitations — there are important ones to note).

Thank you to all our customers who buy Plugable products! We really appreciate your support.

Linux hasn’t had that support — it would try to set the highest mode the monitor is capable of, often resulting in a black screen. Especially common for the DL-125 chip, with its mode limits of 1440×900/1280×1024.

That’s a shame because the DL-125 chip is a smart choice in many cases – by limiting itself to those lower modes, it stays more consistently within the limits of the USB 2.0 bus, resulting in more consistent performance.

So coinciding with the launch of Plugable’s DisplayLink DL-125 based products (UGA-125 and UGA-125-HUB), changes have been implemented to bring Linux roughly up to the level of Windows and Mac in this area for DisplayLink devices. This also helps devices like the UD-160-A when running on monitors greater than its limit of 1920×1080.

The kernel framebuffer driver udlfb has been enhanced to read the resolution limit from the firmware descriptors of the device, and adhere to it.

On the X server side, we needed a driver which would limit itself to the resulting reduced mode list. Unfortunately, the existing displaylink X server reads EDID directly, and assumes the adapter can do whatever the monitor can do.

We’ve been wanting to get rid of the need for a displaylink-specific X server, and the standard xf86-video-fbdev driver runs with the best existing mode, rather than trying to set a higher one in EDID. So this was a good trigger for converting over.

So xf86-video-fbdev has been enhanced with X Damage protocol support, ported from Roberto’s displaylink driver. This is still a little in-flux from an interface perspective, but from a functional perspective it’s done and fully performant.

So it’s now possible to run with a modified generic fbdev driver, which talks to udlfb, with full performance and without needing defio (although there’s also some good news in the defio space, which will be posted about later).

You can grab the latest udlfb kernel module with a “git clone http://git.plugable.com/webdav/udlfb”. Compile with “make && sudo make install && sudo depmod -a”

And you can grab the latest modified xf86-video-fbdev with a “git clone http://git.plugable.com/webdav/xf86-video-fbdev”. Compile with “./autogen.sh && make && sudo make install”

You’ll need a very recent xorg-macros version (1.4), which in package “sudo apt-get install xutils-dev”

To use the new X server, you must turn on the new “ReportDamage” option to fbdev. Modify your existing xorg conf like this:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "dl"
  Driver "fbdev"
  Option "ReportDamage" "true"
  Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0"
EndSection

And you should be all set to go. This new X server should work with the existing udlfb in the staging tree of kernel 2.6.31+ for now, as it’s re-using the same original ioctl. But may require modeset changes that are only in 2.6.34+.

• CrunchGear: Plugable shows off new USB display and docking adapters
• HotHardware: Plugable Technologies Intros New DisplayLink-Enabled USB Products
• NewTechReview: Plugable Technologies USB UGA Docking Stations

Some of our favorite tips from the article:

• Turn on Window’s “Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key” feature
• The hotkey Win-[up, down, left, right] for maximizing, restoring and moving windows across monitors
• Their recommended links to find cool multimonitor wallpaper

In any case, it’s a must-read post for the multi-monitor aficionado.

We’ve been able to get the UGA-125 down under the $50 price point with all the great service and free shipping benefits of Amazon.com. But for our fans who follow Plugable, we have an additional discount.

Enter claim code “LOVEPLUG” before checkout, and you’ll get an additional $5 off. But only during our launch window, from now until the end of April. And only selling in the USA for now, sorry.

And whether in the market for a new product or not, we’d like to send a big “thank you!” to all our loyal customers who take the time to follow what’s new at Plugable.

This video shows two similar 2-monitor setups: the first using PCIe graphics, the other using Intel chipset graphics + a DisplayLink USB chip like the kind used in Plugable’s products.

The DisplayLink solution takes the power consumption from ~80W down to ~50W. Over time, and as you add more monitors, that’s a huge savings.

Read more about this at http://www.displaylink.com/power_saving.html

A couple interesting things covered:

• The usefulness of multiple monitors – once you’ve used them, it’s hard to go back to the limits of one screen.
• They show using the DVI-to-HDMI adapter included with the UGA-2K-A, to add a 42″ LCD TV as a third laptop monitor. Nice!

And they summarize the review with this:

It does exactly what it claims it’s going to do. If I had to register any kind of complaint, I’d say that this could be considered a “gateway drug”…because if I can rock three monitors, what’s to stop me from six or eight?

Exactly what we think, too. Of course, by that analogy, we’re dealers …

One quick note: the review mentions our old pricing of $72.99. Fortunately, we’ve been able to increase our volumes and lower our prices as a result, so the UGA-2K-A is now $69.95. And because this technology is most exciting when it’s not just one but several extra monitors on a single PC — we’re also offering a temporary promotion of $10 off for every two you purchase. All the details are shown on Amazon.

If you don’t have extra monitors around, something like the Acer X203H bd 20-Inch LCD Monitor at 20″ diagonal and 1650×1080 resolution, is a good mid-range companion to one of our adapters. But again, any VGA, DVI, or HDMI monitor will do.

A few things that have evolved since the video:

* Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Mac support
* Open Source exists for programming the DisplayLink chips
* It’s hard to find monitors with DisplayLink integrated, but it’s easy to find the adapters that work with any monitor (like our UGA-2K-A, which uses the DisplayLink DL-195 chip)
* The video showed an adapter with only VGA out. Our provides the more flexible DVI out, and includes simple, passive DVI->VGA and DVI->HDMI adapters which work transparently.
* The video doesn’t talk about resolutions, but the newest chips like the DisplayLink DL-195 can hit higher resolutions and/or have higher quality motion video playback at lower resolutions.

And it’s still the best and easiest way to outfit a cool bat cave.

While those free adapters aren’t quite as nice as ours here at Plugable, but they’d still be a fun win.

And at the post there, you can get an idea what interesting things other people are doing with their USB-attached displays.