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I have never had a good experience docking Linux laptops to a dock with multiple monitors attached. The behaviour changes from only lighting up one monitor to h

by barrkel 10y ago

I have never had a good experience docking Linux laptops to a dock with multiple monitors attached. The behaviour changes from only lighting up one monitor to hard lockups on docking or suspending or something else, depending on kernel version and whim. Randomly the keyboard attached to the dock doesn't initialize and I need to unplug and replug. Unreliable docking is IMO an excellent reason not to use Linux on laptops. And most people use laptops these days because of work from home optionality. This is with a mix of Dell and Lenovo laptops with Intel display chipsets, fwiw.

lallysingh 10y ago
ThinkPads too?
- dopeboy 10y ago
  Thinkpad x250 user here. When I dock with one monitor, my screen will occasionally freeze forcing me to reboot.
  - srazzaque 10y ago
    What OS are you using? I'm on an x260, I had issues on Ubuntu 14 and 16, but since moving to Fedora Workstation 25 I've had an extremely pleasant experience from a hardware/docking point of view.
    - mnadkvlb 10y ago
      Fedora has changed the game for me as well. I am a very happy user so far. Although sometimes i see some notifications about a software crash somewhere. I really enjoy my time on Gnome3, there are very few annoyances as compared to windows/osx. Although i feel osx is way more polished in terms of gestures/ui etc. windows had been an absolute nightmare since windows8.
  - karlmdavis 10y ago
    I used to have this problem a TON, and it drove me absolutely batty. One thing I've found that's drastically cut down on the frequency (possibly eliminated it? not sure) is this: Always wait ten seconds between display state changes. Waking the computer up from sleep? Wait ten seconds before you dock it or connect an external monitor. Undocking it? Wait ten seconds before putting it to sleep. Also: never make more than one state change at a time. For example, don't put the computer to sleep while docked, then undock it. Undock it first, wait ten seconds, then put it to sleep. YMMV, but like I said: I think this has eliminated this problem for me. I've been using this process for some months now, and I'm doing much better at the uptime game (28 days since my last restart, right now).
    - vram22 10y ago
      >Always wait ten seconds between display state changes Yes, that's a good thumb rule when dealing with hardware+software. Not just for displays either. Seen many cases of it. I have a USB modem for mobile Net, for which I wait for a few seconds after it shows the login dialog, to make sure it has fully initialized, even though the dialog seems to indicate it is ready. If I click Connect in the dialog a few seconds too early, it connects but often then the speed comes down to zero quickly. Disconnecting, closing the dialog, removing the modem, waiting 5 seconds, plugging it back in, waiting for the dialog to come up again, and then waiting an extra 5 or so seconds, fixes the issue. Remember issues like this from my system engineer days too (Unix and related support to customers in the field). Once a Unix minicomputer was not booting. (Was working for a large Indian Unix hardware vendor then - India got Unix early and became a Unix country, because of an RBI mandate on bank computerization.) This was at a hospital and they had a lot of critical patient and billing data on it. Backups could have been restored after changing the hard disk, but that would mean machine downtime on a live hospital system. Maybe a lot of time to get a replacement hard disk too, from head office. Others had tried - hardware engineers. I was called in (I was a system engineer, aka software troubleshooter). Tried rebooting. Did not work - hung before kernel boot messages. Rebooted again. No luck. Did it again. Nope. Others said, drop it, lets try something else. I said - wait. Rebooted it again. It came up fine. End of story :) Of course, I did a lot of other (and some harder) kinds of troubleshooting stuff in that role too, not just rebooting boxes :) But the point is that this kind of experience and common sense often worked when sometimes other things didn't. So it takes all kinds of skills ...
- rifung 10y ago
  I use a Thinkpad X1 Carbon for work and when I unplug the external monitor I never know if it's going to sleep or just freeze.
deadlyllama 10y ago
I've had absolutely no trouble with my HP Elitebook (a few years old) and it's dock. I can even run two external displays and the internal one simultaneously.
tonyedgecombe 10y ago
To be fare it's pretty rubbish on Windows as well, in particular if you have different resolutions on each screen. I have to reboot at least twice to get everything working.
- tracker1 10y ago
  I find that mac tends to do the best in terms of connecting/disconnecting external monitors. If only Apple would bless a decent dock design.
- Macha 10y ago
  Also have issues booting up my mbp with multiple displays attached. Usually have to unplug or replug them about 1 in 3 bootups because it's decided to use the wrong resolution or not use one of the monitors. Also whoever's decision it was that if you drop the right 10px at the left edge of the screen, it should only show those 10px and not overlap onto the neighbouring screen by default obviously does not use double monitors.
tonyedgecombe 10y ago
To be fair it's pretty rubbish on Windows as well, in particular if you have different resolutions on each screen. I have to reboot at least twice to get everything working.
endless1234 10y ago
Random behavior when using the dock is pretty standard on my Lenovo running windows as well, though. Pretty much exactly those problems you are describing.
herbst 10y ago
Try that with osx. But seriously. My wayland gnome 3 combination finally made this a absolute non issue.
maus42 10y ago
I once worked at a largish corp with large *nix user contingent. We had Dell laptops and docks and I don't remember having problems you described. However, the IT support had a list of 'recommended' distros (Ubuntu LTS if memory serves) and kernels and they preferred very much if you stuck to those.

by barrkel 10y ago

lallysingh 10y ago

ThinkPads too?

dopeboy 10y ago
Thinkpad x250 user here. When I dock with one monitor, my screen will occasionally freeze forcing me to reboot.
- srazzaque 10y ago
  What OS are you using? I'm on an x260, I had issues on Ubuntu 14 and 16, but since moving to Fedora Workstation 25 I've had an extremely pleasant experience from a hardware/docking point of view.
  - mnadkvlb 10y ago
    Fedora has changed the game for me as well. I am a very happy user so far. Although sometimes i see some notifications about a software crash somewhere. I really enjoy my time on Gnome3, there are very few annoyances as compared to windows/osx. Although i feel osx is way more polished in terms of gestures/ui etc. windows had been an absolute nightmare since windows8.
- karlmdavis 10y ago
  I used to have this problem a TON, and it drove me absolutely batty. One thing I've found that's drastically cut down on the frequency (possibly eliminated it? not sure) is this: Always wait ten seconds between display state changes. Waking the computer up from sleep? Wait ten seconds before you dock it or connect an external monitor. Undocking it? Wait ten seconds before putting it to sleep. Also: never make more than one state change at a time. For example, don't put the computer to sleep while docked, then undock it. Undock it first, wait ten seconds, then put it to sleep. YMMV, but like I said: I think this has eliminated this problem for me. I've been using this process for some months now, and I'm doing much better at the uptime game (28 days since my last restart, right now).
  - vram22 10y ago
    >Always wait ten seconds between display state changes Yes, that's a good thumb rule when dealing with hardware+software. Not just for displays either. Seen many cases of it. I have a USB modem for mobile Net, for which I wait for a few seconds after it shows the login dialog, to make sure it has fully initialized, even though the dialog seems to indicate it is ready. If I click Connect in the dialog a few seconds too early, it connects but often then the speed comes down to zero quickly. Disconnecting, closing the dialog, removing the modem, waiting 5 seconds, plugging it back in, waiting for the dialog to come up again, and then waiting an extra 5 or so seconds, fixes the issue. Remember issues like this from my system engineer days too (Unix and related support to customers in the field). Once a Unix minicomputer was not booting. (Was working for a large Indian Unix hardware vendor then - India got Unix early and became a Unix country, because of an RBI mandate on bank computerization.) This was at a hospital and they had a lot of critical patient and billing data on it. Backups could have been restored after changing the hard disk, but that would mean machine downtime on a live hospital system. Maybe a lot of time to get a replacement hard disk too, from head office. Others had tried - hardware engineers. I was called in (I was a system engineer, aka software troubleshooter). Tried rebooting. Did not work - hung before kernel boot messages. Rebooted again. No luck. Did it again. Nope. Others said, drop it, lets try something else. I said - wait. Rebooted it again. It came up fine. End of story :) Of course, I did a lot of other (and some harder) kinds of troubleshooting stuff in that role too, not just rebooting boxes :) But the point is that this kind of experience and common sense often worked when sometimes other things didn't. So it takes all kinds of skills ...
rifung 10y ago
I use a Thinkpad X1 Carbon for work and when I unplug the external monitor I never know if it's going to sleep or just freeze.

deadlyllama 10y ago

I've had absolutely no trouble with my HP Elitebook (a few years old) and it's dock. I can even run two external displays and the internal one simultaneously.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago

To be fare it's pretty rubbish on Windows as well, in particular if you have different resolutions on each screen. I have to reboot at least twice to get everything working.

tracker1 10y ago
I find that mac tends to do the best in terms of connecting/disconnecting external monitors. If only Apple would bless a decent dock design.
Macha 10y ago
Also have issues booting up my mbp with multiple displays attached. Usually have to unplug or replug them about 1 in 3 bootups because it's decided to use the wrong resolution or not use one of the monitors. Also whoever's decision it was that if you drop the right 10px at the left edge of the screen, it should only show those 10px and not overlap onto the neighbouring screen by default obviously does not use double monitors.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago

To be fair it's pretty rubbish on Windows as well, in particular if you have different resolutions on each screen. I have to reboot at least twice to get everything working.

endless1234 10y ago

Random behavior when using the dock is pretty standard on my Lenovo running windows as well, though. Pretty much exactly those problems you are describing.

herbst 10y ago

Try that with osx. But seriously. My wayland gnome 3 combination finally made this a absolute non issue.

maus42 10y ago

I once worked at a largish corp with large *nix user contingent. We had Dell laptops and docks and I don't remember having problems you described. However, the IT support had a list of 'recommended' distros (Ubuntu LTS if memory serves) and kernels and they preferred very much if you stuck to those.