Hi – I am using a new Geobook 2E with a display link docking station. I have two external monitors (both of which are Axenta) one on HDMI and one on VGA. I have previously used both successfully on Windows 10. I am using the KDE Plasma version of Fedora.
Is there anything you can recommend or suggest as to what the problem might be? I’m assuming its not the hardware but more software (drivers maybe??)
Foxxie.
Welcome to ask.
edora @foxxie
Please have a look at #start-here if you not have already done it.
Could you please give us more info’s as :
inxi -Fzx in terminal and post the output as </> Preformatted text here.
What kind of docking station are you using?
Windows comes with proprietary drivers, while on Fedora you have to install them separately if your device (dock/GPU) not gets recognized by the kernel/GPU.
Showing us the specifications helps to help you 
System:
Kernel: 5.19.16-200.fc36.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
v: 2.37-36.fc36 Console: pty pts/1 Distro: Fedora release 36 (Thirty Six)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: GEO product: GEOBOOK 2E v: N/A serial: <filter>
Mobo: GEO model: X133AR490 serial: N/A UEFI: American Megatrends
v: LC-BI-12.5-X133AR490-594-C date: 12/28/2020
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 31.8 Wh (93.0%) condition: 34.2/34.2 Wh (100.0%)
volts: 8.7 min: N/A model: WB SR 1 WB Lion Battery status: charging
CPU:
Info: quad core model: Intel Celeron N3450 bits: 64 type: MCP
arch: Goldmont rev: 9 cache: L1: 224 KiB L2: 2 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1143 high: 2179 min/max: 800/2200 cores: 1: 800 2: 796
3: 800 4: 2179 bogomips: 8755
Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 500 driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9
bus-ID: 00:02.0
Device-2: Microdia USB 2.0 Camera type: USB
driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-1.1:4
Device-3: Chicony USB2.0 FHD UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo
bus-ID: 1-8:7
Display: server: X.Org v: 1.22.1.4 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.4 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 500 (APL 2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.7
direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Audio Cluster
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 1-1.1:4
Device-2: Microdia USB 2.0 Camera type: USB
driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
Device-3: DisplayLink USB3.0 type: USB driver: cdc_ncm,snd-usb-audio
bus-ID: 2-5.2:3
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.19.16-200.fc36.x86_64 running: yes
Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: no
Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.59 running: yes
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
driver: rtw_8821ce v: N/A port: e000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
IF-ID-1: enp0s21f0u5u2i5 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
bus-ID: 1-7:5
Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 57.66 GiB used: 40.06 GiB (69.5%)
ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 vendor: BIWIN model: N/A size: 57.66 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 56.07 GiB used: 39.84 GiB (71.1%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/mmcblk0p3
ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 205.6 MiB (21.1%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/mmcblk0p2
ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 13.9 MiB (2.3%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/mmcblk0p1
ID-4: /home size: 56.07 GiB used: 39.84 GiB (71.1%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/mmcblk0p3
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 3.66 GiB used: 14 MiB (0.4%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 35.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
Processes: 292 Uptime: 4m Memory: 3.66 GiB used: 2.44 GiB (66.8%)
Init: systemd target: graphical (5) Compilers: gcc: 12.2.1 Packages: N/A
note: see --rpm Shell: Bash v: 5.2.2 inxi: 3.3.21
Can you also post:
lspci | grep -i vga
And
inxi -Gaz
@foxxie a small detail with a big impact, could you please edit your pasted code from terminal?
In the edit mode you can mark the part you pasted and use the </> symbol to format it as preformated text.
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 500 (rev 0b)
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 500 driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9
process: Intel 14n built: 2015-16 ports: active: DP-1 off: eDP-1
empty: HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5a85 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: Microdia USB 2.0 Camera type: USB
driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-1.1:4 chip-ID: 0c45:636b
class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter>
Device-3: Chicony USB2.0 FHD UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo
bus-ID: 1-8:7 chip-ID: 04f2:b650 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter>
Display: server: X.Org v: 1.22.1.4 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.4
compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: modesetting
unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 display-ID: :1 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x286mm (20.00x11.26")
s-diag: 583mm (22.95")
Monitor-1: XWAYLAND0 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 81
size: 600x340mm (23.62x13.39") diag: 690mm (27.15") modes: N/A
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 500 (APL 2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.7
direct render: Yes
You connect via HDMI & VGA to the docking station? From there to your computer the connection is how ?
Yes of course. As I mentioned above, If your device is exotic and uses a closed source driver, it may will not be available or has to be installed separately on Linux alias Fedora.
We do need a brand and model to see what you use (display link docking station is to generic)
There it explains what tools and commands you can use to provide us the necessary information.
I have the ALOGIC DV3 Universal Triple Display Docking Station with two Xenta 27" Monitors (Full HD VGA HDMI). One using a HDMI cable and one using a VGA cable.
I’m not really sure, but I think the i915 driver should detect that multiple monitors are connect via DisplayPort’s Multi-Stream Transport protocol. The i915 driver does appear to support the protocol and it does appear to be enabled by default.
$ modinfo i915 | grep mst
parm: enable_dp_mst:Enable multi-stream transport (MST) for new DisplayPort sinks. (default: true) (bool)
I think it is supposed to work transparently. You shouldn’t have to do anything special (e.g. install additional software) to enable multiple monitors. About the only thing I see that might help is the i915.force_probe[1] parameter.
$ modinfo i915 | grep force_probe
parm: force_probe:Force probe the driver for specified devices. See CONFIG_DRM_I915_FORCE_PROBE for details. (charp)
You might try adding i915.force_probe=* to your list of kernel parameters and see if that helps. That is just a shot in the dark guess though.