[Discuss] Dell docking and NVIDIA outputs

[Gordon Ross]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Edward Ned Harvey <blu at nedharvey.com> wrote:
>> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
>> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Jay Burrill
>>
>> I have been trying to switch to Linux (openSUSE 12.1 Gnome 3) on a fairly
>> good Dell Precision M4500 with NVIDIA FX880.  But the driver does not seem
>> to be very full featured.  My expectations are:a. that if I dock, the
> driver will
>> switch to use the external monitors (2); b. that if I undock, the driver
> will
>> switch to use the internal LCD;c. that if I suspend while docked and
>> outputting to the two externals, when I resume undocked, the driver will
>
> I am supporting many users on many different types of laptops using many
> different OSes.  Everything works well, ONLY if your primary OS is either
> OSX or Windows, and you run your linux as a guest VM.
>
> I am sorry to say, I don't consider linux to be a well supported full
> featured client desktop system, especially for laptops.  It has come a long
> way, but manufacturers just don't care enough right now to make all the
> little details work right - such as switching displays and sleep/wake.

I'm using the nVidia driver with Xorg et. al. on a Dell laptop
(Precision M6300 - nice machine!) with a dell docking station via its
DVI port.  All works great.  I should say, this is on illumos, not
linux, but I'm told nVidia provides this same (closed source) driver
for sevaral OS flavors.   So, if you're not religious about running
100% open source code, this is a very usable solution.  (In this case,
I'm willing to settle for 99% open source code, at least for now:)

Gordon