[ANNOUNCE] udlfb 0.2.3 and xf86-video-displaylink 0.3

Roberto De Ioris roberto at unbit.it
Wed Jun 10 08:00:07 PDT 2009


I am pleases to announce a new release of udlfb, the displaylink
linux framebuffer kernel module and of xf86-video-displaylink, the
relative xorg video driver.

The all-in-one package can be downloaded from:

http://projects.unbit.it/downloads/udlfb-0.2.3_and_xf86-video-displaylink-0.3.tar.gz

These releases are officially sponsored by Unbit (http://unbit.it) and
special thanks go to Marvell (http://www.marvell.com/) for donating an
amazing Sheevaplug to test development on embedded devices.

*** Changes in udlfb 0.2.3 ***

- new ioctl (0xAD) to get edid data from device
- fallback mode (to 1280x1024) for monitor with unsupported resolutions

*** Changes in xf86-video-displaylink 0.3 ***

- no more shadow framebuffer, the backing buffer of the framebuffer
kernel module is used for the same scope (saving a lot of precious ram)
- preliminary RandR support, all supported video modes are reported.
- dirty fix for the annoying "Cannot run in framebuffer mode." bug. Now
it is possibile to use displaylink devices with the other gfx card in
the system (in zaphod mode). In the README there is an example
configuration for three displaylink devices and one intel card (tested
on an eeeBox and a MacBook).

Warning, Desktop Environment do not always support a multiple screen
environment without problems.
In Ubuntu Jaunty there is a bug (affecting Gnome) that can be fixed with
this patch of the glib package:

http://launchpadlibrarian.net/27278363/C%3A\cygwin\home\gwa
\glib-fix.patch

(- beware of the funny url ;) -)

Kde4 in Jaunty seem not to work on multiple screen, Xfce works out of
the box.

Now i will focus on patching the intel driver to add a virtual crtc for
every displaylink device in the system. This will allow to use the GPU
to draw (maybe accelerated) contents and send the output via the usb,
and to use a single big screen (the old Xinerama/MergedFB way).

Thanks for testing it.

-- 
Roberto De Ioris
http://unbit.it
JID: roberto at jabber.unbit.it



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