With my old Lenovo T61 I have used a Lenovo docking station for as long as I have had the computer. Keith suggested the docking station years ago and it was one of his better ideas. It is cool to come home, plop the computer onto the docking station, and instantly your power, ethernet, and external devices are all connected.
Lenovo no longer makes a computer that interests me, so when I needed to get a new computer I ended up with a (Linux reseller) System76 Bonobo Extrreme. But other than Lenovo and Dell, no one makes real docking stations any more. These days you are supposed to use a USB 3.0 docking station. Typically these docking stations offer additional USB 3.0 ports, audio in/out, gigabit ethernet, and video out ports. There are numerous brands/models available from the usual culprits, Targus, kensington, and other less well known names for prices in the $100 range. For the video every one of them uses a DisplayLink chip, there are no alternatives. The older USB 2.0 docks used a version of the DisplayLink chip that is supported in current Linux kernels, but the versions of the DisplayLink chip used in the USB 3.0 docks have no Linux support. And apparently there never will be support, unless someone finally hacks the chip to develop a Linux driver. DisplayLink says that a Linux driver is in the works, but they have been saying that for over a year and apparently they have no intention of following through, nor will they release the information necessary for open source developers to do it for them. For me, fortunately, I have no need for video out. DisplayLink can rot in proprietary hell as far as I am concerned. But that means that I am not going to buy any product that uses DisplayLink technology. Instead, I am merely interested in a dock that can provide me with additional USB 3.0 ports and gigabit ethernet. At least I can get it down to where I need to plug in only the power cable and the USB 3.0 cable from the dock. Not as simple as with my old Lenovo, but not bad. There are some other considerations. I have pretty good internet connection (50 Mbps, which I can upgrade to 100 Mbps), plus my house and all my computers are wired for gigabit ethernet. And my new computer has a Thunderbolt port as well as USB 3.0. I want to be sure that if I connect my laptop to ethernet via a USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt connector my speed will not be throttled by the connection. A little quick math put my mind to rest. USB 3.0 is advertised as capable of 5.0 Gbps and, even though I am sure I will never get all of that in the real world, "gigabit ethernet" means 1.0 Gbps, so USB 3.0 is theoretically five times faster. And current Thunderbolt is advertised as being capable of 10.0 Gbps, with four lanes, so it would also present no bottlenecks to the ethernet. (Someone check my math.) Thunderbolt needs a side comment here. Apple is always coming out with a new standard (remember firewire?) and trying to get the rest of the world to follow them. Thunderbolt is one such Apple technology. Current Macs come with Thunderbolt ports. While Thunderbolt is potentially better than USB 3.0, there are few devices for it. I did discover a Belkin Thunderbolt dock with video out and the other typical ports designed for Macs, but its price is $250+. Why so much? Because manufacturers of Thunderbolt devices have to pay a hefty licensing fee to Apple. All Thunderbolt devices are outrageously expensive compared to their USB 3.0 competitors. For me, Thunderbolt is another technology that can rot in proprietary hell. After much poking around the net the best I came up with is a HooToo device: http://tinyurl.com/k6xn5q4 According to the literature from HooToo it is fully Linux compatible (kernel 3.6 or later). The only thing I wish it had was an external power supply to keep the USB 3.0 ports fully powered. But at the moment the only USB device that will be plugged in to it has its own external power supply, so that is not currently an issue for me. Comments and suggestions welcome. :) _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
