DisplayLink ASUS MB168B+ issues

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First of all, let me tell you I am fond of Ubuntu and linux, using it every day since 4-5 years now. I love it, i keep
loving it but sometimes it is just frustrating to see how much effort it takes for the simplest things.

I bought an Asus MB168B+ USB monitor which i spent the whole day trying to make it work, without any
success.

I googled and googled, installed the drivers, followed guides, tried others solutions. Nothing

The best result I got so far is having a split screen with horrible colors and a distorted resolution:

Here some data and facts:

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$ uname -a
Linux xps 3.19.8-031908-generic #201505110938 SMP Mon May 11 13:39:59 UTC 2015
x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ lsb_release -d
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
$ dmesg
[ 3818.201391] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 3818.201393] usb 1-1: Product: MB168B+
[ 3818.201395] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: DisplayLink
[ 3818.201397] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: EBLMTF251664

When I connect the screen while running, the whole X session crashes, sending me back to the login screen,
and the USB screen stays off

If i disconnect and reconnect the usb nothing happens

The "working" screen i got from the picture above was the result of putting a config file for the X server,

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/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/52-displaylink.conf
Section "Device"
Identifier "intel"
driver "intel"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "dl1"
driver "displaylink"
Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "monitor0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "monitor1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen0"
Device "dl1"
Monitor "monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "intel"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "multihead"
Screen 0 "screen0" 1280 0
Screen 1 "screen1" LeftOf "screen0"
Option "Xinerama" "on"
EndSection

I'm not familiar with X server configurations, but my guess is that it has something to do with that. For sure, it
doesnt work out of the box after installing the drivers.

I'd be glad to receive some suggestions after a good working day wasted on this.

Thank you

asked Mar 10 '16 at 17:27

disf.asia

12315

3/6
2 Answers

up vote OK finally got mine working perfectly here are the steps I did. This is all done from the terminal, minus
3 down the download. I'm brand new to Ubuntu, so far drivers have been a pain in the a.., wifi setup was
vote worse.

Ubuntu 16.04 - fresh install on a Samsung Ativ Book 9 Spin

Note the driver version number and update yours accordingly as it will change in time.

1. Download driver from http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/ubuntu

2. Move the driver to somewhere for manipulation. I put mine under ~/driver/displaylink and unzip
it

3. chmod +x displaylink-driver-1.0.335.run

4. ./displaylink-driver-1.0.335.run --keep --noexec

5. cd displaylink-driver-1.0.335.run/

6. Modify the the displaylink-installer.sh with your favorite editor:

Remove this:

detect_distro()
{
if which lsb_release >/dev/null; then
local R=$(lsb_release -d -s)
echo "Distribution discovered: $R"
if [ -z "${R##Ubuntu 14.*}" ]; then
SYSTEMINITDAEMON=upstart
elif [ -z "${R##Ubuntu 15.04*}" ]; then
SYSTEMINITDAEMON=systemd
fi
else
echo "WARNING: Unknown distribution, assuming defaults - this may
fail." >&2
fi
}

Replace with:

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 detect_distro()
{
if which lsb_release >/dev/null;
then
local R=$(lsb_release -d -s)
echo "Distribution discovered: $R"
SYSTEMINITDAEMON=systemd
fi
}

7. sudo apt-get install dkms (This was from an error I was getting regarding missing
packages for dkms, whatever that is)

8. sudo ./displaylink-installer.sh install

9. Go to settings > displays I saw it listed at this point but only a black screen on the Asus monitor.
Unplug it
10. Restart, plug in the monitor and it magically worked for me. Clear as mud

Solution is from a mix of:

"How to install DisplayLink for Ubuntu" from displaylink.com

Using the Asus MB168B+ with Ubuntu 15.10 http://codingstruggles.com/using-the-asus-
mb158b-with-ubuntu-15-10.html

Note I really only followed the coding struggles article and was missing the dkms packages that were
mentioned in the displaylink.com article.

up Just a few days ago, displaylink released a new driver that works much better, seemingly. Right off for
vote 1 me, on 16.04, with one caveat: it was unable to start the service it needs to run because I was on UEFI
down "safeboot", and the failure was very silent.
vote
Going into bios and turning off safeboot fixed it for me. There's also mokutils, though that didn't work for
me.

Finally, there is a nice package on github for debian , though they hadn't updated with the new driver, so
it wasn't quite working for me--just nearly. I messaged the repo maintainer, however, and by the next
morning he had updated it.

I believe distro detection is now resolved in the most recent version.

answered Feb 23 at 20:18

Kyle Baker

1766

5/6
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