On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 12:50:50PM -0400, Giles Orr via talk wrote:
A couple days ago I got a Best Buy flyer, and they have this item:
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asus-zenscreen-15-6- fhd-60hz-5ms-gtg-ips-lcd-monitor-mb16ac-dark-grey/10737845.aspx?
It's a portable IPS LCD screen from Asus. I have a similar item from about three years ago that has two connectors, one for USB power-only and the other for VGA/HDMI. There were other models at the time that used only one connector, USB for both data and power - but that required a driver (and would have been painfully slow if it was USB2).
But now here's this new model: it's one connector only, USB-C. And presumably USB3.1. And USB3.1 can carry video. But at this point I get lost among the standards and their implementations and which one supports what. I have an Asus Zenbook (it's Linux-only at this point) that has a USB-C connector, but I suspect it's USB3.0. So the first question is: how do I check that? Second, does Linux support video-over-USB3.1? Do I need a special cable? Is this "Thunderbolt?" How can I check if my machine would support this?
I admit that I'm probably not going to run out and buy this tomorrow as the old one is mostly sufficient for my needs, but I'm very curious about the state of Linux support for USB3.1 and Thunderbolt's many features. And I'd like to know if my USB-C port supports USB3.1.
The manual says it uses DisplayPort Alt Mode for USB Type-C. So if you connect it to a system that supports that mode on a USB type-C connector, it should just work as a DisplayPort screen. If your system does not support that, you can use any USB 3 port but you need a driver in that case to run it as a USB video adapter instead. Linux as of 4.6 kernel appears to support DisplayPort over USB Type-C at least on some systems. -- Len Sorensen