If the DisplayLink driver existed in the kernel, it would be SO much easier for the users to get it working. In my role as Chief Digital Officer for a large company (of 8000 people), I would probably have bought 500 of these devices IF the driver were just upstream (you know, how Linux devices normally "just work" without the aggro common in the Windows world). However, the annoyance of a manual driver install, especially when it's broken on updates to newer kernels, is just something I wouldn't want to invest in. Please consider that proprietary drivers are serious impediment to sales, and just work with a willing community upstream.

Packaging of ubuntu drivers into a .zip file with a name containing lots of spaces, which unzips into the current folder instead of a subfolder, and then requires the manual execution of an installer script (which may as well be called setup.exe), makes ubuntu users feel like we are running Windows again, and reminds us why we hated it so much. Ubuntu offers a superior packaging format (the .deb package), and a repository model which offers streamlined installation, and automatic updates forever. Setting up a repository for your software and packaging it properly will take very little more effort than your current packaging process, and not doing so is harming your penetration into the Linux market, and is a huge missed opportunity.

I had version 1.1.62 of the Ubuntu driver installed. When I tried to install the new driver, I got errors saying the EVDI module was running and I needed to reboot to continue the installation. After reboot, I got the same error again.

After looking into the running DisplayLinkManager process, I ended up dropping into /usr/lib/displaylink and running the install script there with the uninstall option:

me@mine:/usr/lib/displaylink$ sudo ./displaylink-installer.sh uninstall
DisplayLink Linux Software 1.1.62 install script called: uninstall
Distribution discovered: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Uninstalling
Removing EVDI from kernel tree, DKMS, and removing sources.
Stopping DLM systemd service
Removed symlink /etc/systemd/system/graphical.target.wants/displaylink.service.
Removing suspend-resume hooks
Removing udev rule
Removing Core folder

Uninstallation steps complete.
Please note that the evdi kernel module is still in the memory.
A reboot is required to fully complete the uninstallation process.

This finally allowed me to go install the new driver after a reboot. Can you guys just add some upgrade logic into your installation script?

After I upgraded to 16.04 LTS, I could not use my DisplayLinks graphics/ethernet adapter for graphics (ethernet works fine). I recently installed the newest driver (1.2.65) but I get this error:

Warning: dlm.service changed on disk. Run 'systemctl daemon-reload' to reload units.
Job for dlm.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status dlm.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

I run journalctl as suggested by the error message and here is what I get:

26 16:27:28 myhost systemd[1]: Starting DisplayLink Manager Service...
-- Subject: Unit dlm.service has begun start-up
-- Defined-By: systemd

-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel

-- Unit dlm.service has begun starting up.
26 16:27:28 myhost modprobe[12034]: modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'evdi': Required key not available
26 16:27:28 myhost systemd[1]: dlm.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
26 16:27:28 myhost systemd[1]: Failed to start DisplayLink Manager Service.
-- Subject: Unit dlm.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd

-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel

-- Unit dlm.service has failed.

-- The result is failed.
26 16:27:28 myhost systemd[1]: dlm.service: Unit entered failed state.
26 16:27:28 myhost systemd[1]: dlm.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Any ideas?