My Wednesday Presentation And USB-To-Video Adapters

[Bernie Hoefer]

      I wanted to thank the 8 people who attended Wednesday's meeting 
and my "Hardware Access In QEMU/KVM" presentation.  (Dan, Ed, Marc, 
Michael, Nancy, Robert, Terry -- and especially Igor for sharing his 
experience with his *working* PCI-passthrough setup!)

      During the presentation, I mentioned how my old mini-tower allows 
only one PCI video card to be used at a time.  Ed suggested trying a 
USB-to-video adapter.  I thought that was a great idea, so this 
afternoon I looked into what Best Buy and Fry's have.
      I learned that USB-to-video adapters are apparently not well 
supported on GNU/Linux.  I discovered that all the ones carried by local 
stores are said not to work with GNU/Linux.  (Does anybody know 
differently?)

      Looking on Amazon and doing more research, this possibility caught 
my attention:


Wavlink USB 2.0 to VGA/DVI/HDMI Universal Video Graphics Display Adapter
[https://www.amazon.com/Wavlink-Graphics-Display-Multiple-Monitors/dp/B01AL6IBF8/ref=zg_bs_3015403011_49?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GMRANE7SD3PDGQEDEA9C]


      The above device uses a DisplayLink DL-165 chipset, which these 
documents state is supported by the Open Source udlfb driver:

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DisplayLink]

[http://assets.displaylink.com/live/downloads/release-notes/f1577_DisplayLink+USB+Graphics+Software+for+Ubuntu+5.3.1-Release+Notes.txt]

      Wavlink also makes other USB-to-video devices, but they use the 
newer DisplayLink USB 3.0 chipset which requires a proprietary blob:

[https://www.displaylink.com/downloads/ubuntu]

[http://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/679060]

      Since I'm not needing the latest and greatest, I figured the USB 
2.0 one with the Open Source driver was the better choice.  Does anybody 
have any thoughts?



P.S.  In my search, I found many more USB-C-to-video adapters than 
USB-A-to-video adapters.  It is my understanding that those USB-C 
connections must support "Alt Mode", which can optionally support 
non-USB signals such as DisplayPort (DP).  This is not a technology 
generally included in a desktop's USB-A connectors.  Thunderbolt is 
apparently a superset of this.  (Which my old mini-tower does not have.)

-- 
Bernie Hoefer
PGP e-mail is welcome!  Get my 1024 bit signature key from:
[http://keys.gnupg.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7241A6A9446A6F93].
"The more I know, the more I realize how much I do not understand."

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