Laptop and two external monitors

Andriy

Andriy

Developer
I'd like to get a laptop that can support two external monitors while I am using it at home.
That is, in my mind, I would use that laptop's screen while on the road, but at home I'd use two external monitors and just keep the laptop lid closed.
The monitors would be either HDMI+DP or DP+DP.

I don't have any fresh experience with laptops and their connectivity options.
I hear that a lot of things are now done through USB or Thunderbolt.

Are there laptops that have two external graphics ports?
Or would it better to use some sort of a dock station?
Or, perhaps, DP chaining? (Not sure that my monitors would support that, actually).

What are the best options based on your experience or understanding?
Oh, and the OS would be FreeBSD, naturally.
Probably with X but maybe with Wayland, not sure.
 
i found using a thunderbolt port with Freebsd only worked
if you booted up with the device plugged in

and if you unplugged the thunderbolt device
while powered on Freebsd would crash and you have to do a hard reset

that was using a ethernet to thunderbolt adapter
on a Macbook Pro Retina running Freebsd 14.1

i have also found the same issue with Linux
and thunderbolt ports as well

in my experience it means you cant use thunderbolt to hot swap displays

you have to boot up with the displays plugged into the thunderbolt ports
and then power off the machine to unplug them

maybe other people have had better luck
and its just an issue with Mac running Freebsd

i think if you have 2 thunderbolt ports you can plug in a display to each one
you may also be able to daisy chain displays with one thunderbolt port

also not sure if you can use hdmi to thunderbolt adapters

but can be sure about that as i only have 1 external monitor
and havent tried
 
There are some gaming laptops that have both physical ports for hdmi or DP but don't know how well are supported by FreeBSD. It can be achieved with a laptop that has support for docking stations.
e.g. Lenovo T430 + docking station with 3 active monitors:
Code: 
 xrandr --listmonitors                                                                                                                                        
Monitors: 3
 0: +*LVDS-1 1600/309x900/174+1920+0  LVDS-1
 1: +HDMI-1 1920/354x1080/199+3520+0  HDMI-1
 2: +HDMI-2 1920/345x1080/194+0+0  HDMI-2

i3wm78-04.01.2025.png
 
NapoleonWils0n said:
also not sure if you can use hdmi to thunderbolt adapters
Click to expand...
On Apple you can.
Code: 
Mac computers that have any of the following ports can connect to HDMI devices:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
[LIST]
[*]HDMI port: Connect directly to HDMI with an HDMI cable. For 8K connections, use an Ultra High Speed 48 Gbps HDMI cable such as the Belkin UltraHD High Speed HDMI cable.
[*]Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, or USB-C port: Connect to HDMI with an adapter such as the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter.
[*]Thunderbolt 2, Thunderbolt, or Mini DisplayPort: Connect to HDMI with a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter or cable such as the Belkin 4K Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter.\
[/LIST]
So if you can on Mac - im sure you can do on other manufacturers as Thunderbolt is Intel with Apple coloboration.

Andriy said:
I'd like to get a laptop that can support two external monitors while I am using it at home.
Click to expand...
As far as i understood - if its optimus it could be an issue with it but i was looking for 3-4 monitor connections from laptop but my laptop search was only within ThinkPad section and i found out there are plenty of TP`s who can run extra 2 monitors i just dont know if FreeBSD will be able to do so. On another thought .... i have ThinkPad with intel gpu , usb-c and hdmi... i can check if usb-c works with intel gpu.
Many TP`sx can use hdmi, thunderbolt and usb-c for display output. ...
 
Update: so i connected my usb-c to usb-c monitor , connected hdmi and i was able to have 3 screens , laptop,usb-c and hdmi. no nvidia gpu. usb-c reported as DP-1 on arandr. so if its reported as DP-1 and if i check T480 datasheet - Lenovo sels usb-c to dp adapter.
Im maybe blind - but i dont see thunderbolt on my T480.
P.s. as i have monitor with usb-c abilities i dont need anything but my laptop can do only 60hz 4k on usb-c and 30hz 4k on hdmi.
 
I have an HP docking station and with usbconfig, I see it is picked up:

ugen2.2: <Microchip HP USB-C/A Universal Dock G2> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen2.3: <DisplayLink HP USB-C Universal Docking Station> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=ON (2mA)
ugen1.2: <Microchip HP USB-C/A Universal Dock G2> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen2.4: <Microchip Tech USB5734> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen1.3: <Microchip Tech USB2734> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (0mA)
ugen2.5: <RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Realtek Semiconductor Corp.> at usbus2, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=ON (64mA)
ugen1.4: <HP HP USB-C/A Universal Dock G2> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=ON (0mA)
Click to expand...

But, with xrandr, I don't see any additional outputs. I hotplugged the USB docking station. Additionally, it does not appear the docking station is charging my laptop for whatever reason, that should be a lower level, but why it doesn't charge is beyond me.

EDIT: I just rebooted, and that did not make any difference for the monitors showing up. My laptop has both an onboard video and an Nvidia RTX 3000 GPU, both drivers are loaded, but X11 should be using the nvidia drivers.
 
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