USB Port Replicator

[Taavi Burns]

On 6/22/05, Vince Fry <allroy10-Arjm76Ya4q7k1uMJSBkQmQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>  I was actually thinking about this:
> http://www.targus.com/ca/product_details.asp?sku=ACP50CA
>  
>  I contacted Targus, but, unsurprisingly, they claim it only supports 'Doze.
>  
>  Taavi, if I'm understanding you correctly, this would just act as a USB
> hub?

GAK!  That beast is totally different from what I was thinking of. 
Video over USB is just asking for trouble. :(

The other ports, though, might have a small chance of working if
you're lucky.  If they did this "right", this docking station(*)
should be seen first and foremost as a USB hub or "multifunction
device".  The USB ports really ought to work just as a USB hub.  The
sound inputs and outputs ought to work as standard USB Audio-class
devices.  You might even get lucky with the ethernet port.  But the
video...I've never heard of USB standard video.  Hence, it's highly
unlikely to have Linux support.  There are enough problems getting
webcams to work. :)  You'd also have to expect performance to suffer
quite a bit.  Your video hardware has about as much bandwidth as your
main memory (in many cases it has more), and even trying to stream
just the framebuffer across like that is going to be painful.

I'd suggest looking into an actual port replicator for your laptop. 
And if you laptop doesn't support one...well...perhaps that should be
a consideration next time. :)


(*)  For it is not a port replicator; a port replicator just extends
wires to sockets, this is an entirely separate device providing its
own peripherals.

-- 
taa
/*eof*/
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