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My Ubuntu laptop finally works with my docking station!

Targus USB-C Docking Station

I've been running Ubuntu on my personal laptop, a Dell Inspiron 13. I love it. It's slim, performant and I can code, play, read, stream without any difficulty. Yet when I try to use my bigger PC monitors by connecting my laptop to a docking station, I've had a lot of trouble. I've tried 2 docking stations, but none of them worked with Ubuntu. Some solutions found online suggest rebuilding my kernel, but I didn't want to do that, it felt too extreme for what should be trivial.

This post is about how I finally got my docking station to work with Ubuntu 22.04.

My current docking station is a Targus USB-C Docking Station and it works perfectly with other Windows devices. While doing some cleaning on my desk a logo catches my attention on the dock; the Displaylink logo. And that was the beginning of the end for the problem with that dock station.


DisplayLink logo on a Targus USB-C Docking Station


After a quick search (aka Googling with DuckDuckGo) I found exactly what I was looking for on Synaptics web site. A solution for the older Linux versions! 

Following the instructions: How to install DisplayLink Software - Ubuntu, I was able to downloads the Synaptics Ubuntu Driver Download and install them in a few minutes. After a reboot... It worked!

I hope it will help others with the same problem.