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Running on Linux

Supported architectures and distributions

DisplayLink Direct supports the following Linux platforms:

  • x86_64 (Intel/AMD 64-bit)
  • aarch64 (ARM 64-bit)

The SDK is compatible with most modern Linux distributions. Ensure your system meets the minimum C runtime and library requirements before installation.

Runtime dependencies

The following system libraries are required to run DisplayLink Direct:

  • libusb >= 1.0.16 — for USB device communication
  • libc6 >= 2.31 — C runtime library

These libraries are typically pre-installed on most Linux distributions. If your system is missing them, install them using your distribution's package manager:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0 libc6

sudo yum install libusb libc

apk add libusb libc6

Download the library

Download the pre-built library package for your architecture from the GitHub Release Assets.

Building with CMake

To integrate the SDK into your CMake project, use find_package to locate the SDK and link against the dlsdk::dlsdk target:

find_package(dlsdk 2.0.0 REQUIRED)

add_executable(my-app main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my-app PRIVATE dlsdk::dlsdk)

Then configure and build, passing the SDK installation path via CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH:

cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/dlsdk -S . -B build
cmake --build build

Replace /path/to/dlsdk with the path to your DisplayLink Direct installation.

Running applications

If the standard DisplayLink driver (displaylink-driver) is installed on your system, it must be stopped and masked before using DisplayLink Direct because the driver and DisplayLink Direct cannot both manage the device simultaneously:

sudo systemctl stop displaylink-driver
sudo systemctl mask displaylink-driver

USB permissions

By default, access to DisplayLink USB devices requires root privileges. To run applications without root, set up udev rules to grant access to users in the displaylink group:

sudo groupadd displaylink
sudo usermod -aG displaylink $USER

echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="usb", MODE="0660", GROUP="displaylink"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/00-usb-permissions.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

Log out and log back in for group membership changes to take effect. Then you can run applications without the sudo prefix.