DisplayLink Provides USB GPU Support On Linux

Besides Intel, VIA, and ATI/AMD cooperating with X.Org and Linux developers by providing source code and documentation to help with the enablement of their hardware under Linux, another major company has come to the open-source table. No, sadly it is not NVIDIA. DisplayLink is the company and it has now provided an open-source library so that products using their technology will eventually work with Linux.

DisplayLink developed the technology that allows graphics processors to operate over USB to power high resolution displays. Companies like LG Eletronics, Hewlett-Packard, ASUS, Samsung, and Acer use the technology from DisplayLink. This Linux library for DisplayLink that has been released under the GNU LGPLv2 license is not immediately usable as first programs/drivers need to be written to take advantage of the library.

As is announced in DisplayLink's Linux press release, they have partnered with Novell's Greg Kroah-Hartman and his Linux Driver Project to begin working on the support. We were also told by Bernie Thompson, DisplayLink's VP of Software Platforms, that Keith Packard is also involved in bringing DisplayLink support to Linux.

Nice job DisplayLink for releasing this open-source library that will ultimately mean USB graphics support on Linux.