Steam Deck VisionTek VT4900 Dock Support

[AlienDude]

Hello,

I have the 512 GB model of the steam deck and I absolutely love it. I know there isn't an official dock accessory yet, but for work I own a VisionTek VT4900 dock and it works great with my company-provided MacBook Pro. I have two 1440p monitors plugged into this dock via DisplayLink. I tried plugging the dock into my Steam Deck, in hopes of it working, and thought I could use my work setup to play games as well. Unfortunately, the monitors are black. I was able to get these monitors working on Arch Linux on my laptop by installing the DisplayLink/evdi drivers. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the Steam Deck supports this, so the dock is partially functional -- namely, the monitors don't works (black screens on both; no output even attempted). However, the following works:

* I have 2.1 speakers plugged into the dock via the 3.5mm jack. This works and the sound quality is excellent from the Steam Deck.
* I have a Logitech USB webcam connected to the dock, and it recognizes this as well as the microphone on it.
* I have receivers for the Logitech MX keys and MX Master 3 mouse plugged in to the USB ports of the dock as well, and both are working flawlessly. I'm actually typing this whole thing from my Steam Deck.
* The dock provides 100W charging, and it looks like the steam deck is charging at it's full speed just fine
* The gigabit ethernet port works well. I pay for gigabit service at home, and I was able to hit 960 Mbps in a speed test, from the steam deck using Google Chrome.

Would love if anyone had suggestions to get the monitors working, as this dock is awesome, I already own it, and I'd love to be able to use it for both work and play. Thanks! :-)

[Screenager]

That's the reason all drivers belong in the kernel... did someone try to boot from USB and mount the internal SSD? I guess they have three partitions: A/B stable Version that updates alternatively and one for the /home and some folders in /usr I would guess /etc and /var too. There's gotta be a flag somewhere that will set the A/B partitions mutable but you will lose all changes each update. I can't seem to google anything about it and I'm too lazy (that means busy playing Elden Ring) to tinker around with it myself.

[retrogunner]

tl;dr - For the Steam Deck you'll need to use a USB-C dock/dongle that has HDMI (via Alt-DP). DisplayLink will not work.

I too use an extra DisplayLink or two with my Linux machines over the years. I don't know about the Arch distro that's under the hood for SteamOS 3.x, however the *only* Linux distro I've had DisplayLinks work "out-of-the-box" for is Mint Linux - period.
* fedora - pita at the time
* debian - configuration challenges too with stupid xorg.conf
* unbuntu - got the "green screen" to appear, but couldn't activate further
* mint - plugged them in - instant desktop.

Since Alt-DP is becoming more & more common on laptops, my PinePhone, and other devices, I'm switching over to portable, USB Powered HDMI displays using a small dock-dongle.
* They are as affordable as my old 14" AOC DisplayLink monitors -- with I still use.
* I can use them with Raspberry Pi, our Switch, my XBOX 360, and so much more without driver hassle. It just works.
* They have 1080P while my AOC have 1366x768
* They are much slimmer than my AOCs (which are "bulbous") or even my Laptop and come with flip cover protective cases -- so they are more backpack friendly.

And one final *super* important thing about DisplayLink monitors -- THEY DO NOT USE YOUR GPU !!! They use software display drivers & system memory plus have no graphic processing acceleration. I cannot play GPU-intense games on my DisplayLinks but I do use them for guides, YT, & Discord while I game on my main two HDMI monitors. My fps drops to a few frames a sec when I drag a game's window to that monitor.

So, if you like DisplayLink, use them with your Mac. However, If you can afford the 512GB model, you should spring for a reasonable USB-C dock/dongle with Alt-DP HDMI and a portable HDMI monitor.