Usb to hdmi adapter problems

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

greetings fellow users, ill cut right to the chase
i am trying to get a usb to hdmi adapter working on my lenovo laptop.
The adapter is a Gana model number: ‎AB-DE-USB2HDMI.
After a bit of searchign i was led to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DisplayLink
and as one might guess, the arch wiki was not successful, upon creating the formerly mentioned file, my “xrandr --listproviders” has not changed.

Does anybody else have a guess what might be the problem? or is it just not going to work at all?

Sidenote: the adapter is recognized, plugging it in its recognized with a small 8mb “cd” partition with 2 exe files in it.

Thank you in advance

2

Someone might have some pointers, but I wouldn’t hold out hope. DisplayLink under Linux is patchy in general (given it’s a proprietary protocol), and after reading some Amazon reviews this particular adapter doesn’t even seem to work under Windows… :pensive:

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3

According to what i read it supports. Mirror and extended mode: the USB to HDMI converter has 2 modes. Mirror mode displays the same images, giving you a better visual experience. Advanced Mode expands your workspace by up to two additional monitors, a TV or projector via the USB interface. The tow files inside the folder are drivers for Windows xp and Win7 to 10. I would make sure it’s plugged into usb 3.0 port.

I don’t know much about display-link other then what i read.
Did you run this as you said plugging in is recognized as a usb device but? :thinking:

 modprobe udl
4

it has been recognized before as well,with the small 8mb partition
i tried both the usb 3 and 2 port, neither makes a difference as far as i caa tell (the laptop has 2 usb 3 ports and one 2 port)

i get no output

5

Did you use sudo?

6

i indeed did, neither sudo nor without sudo gives me an output

7

You may need to use evdi for displaylink i really don’t know much about it. evdi is a kernel module for displaylink. This is really getting into unknown territory so i can’t really help. But here is a link. I just don’t want you to mess up your whole system. Is this usb adapter a displaylink?

Edit: evdi is in the AUR

8

as per the instruction of the arch wiki, i did install it first
thankfully, this laptop has nothing on it as of right now

9

Did you also try evdi-git (AUR package)?

It might be that you’re just out of luck on this one. The very first two lines on the Arch wiki page say:

DisplayLink devices on Linux still only have experimental support. While some people have had success in using them, it is generally not an easy process and not guaranteed to work.

And as mentioned above by jonathon:

10

while it likely just wont work, it does seem i have missed step 4
" For Xorg use the “modesetting” driver with AccelMethod “none” and MatchDriver “evdi”.
and as many times with the arch wiki, i have no idea what it wants from me here

11

I think you already created the file that’s mentioned in step 4:

12

oh so i mistook step 4 and creating the file for two separate steps, probably just the formatting
makes sense

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13

Well did you get anywhere?

14

unfortunately not, it appears im out of luck on this one

15

Can you somehow test it on a windows machine first (since it’s designed to work with Windows, given the two exe files) to make sure the adapter actually works at all?

16

Given the Amazon reviews and the apparent effects of installing their software, I’m not sure that I would risk it… :sweat_smile:

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17

Fair point

18

adding to that, unless im forced at gunpoint, id rather not infest my machines with windows again

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19

was rather suggesting finding someone who uses windows already and ask for a quick test

20

The two exe files are drivers for windows xp and windows 7/8/10