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I just got a Dell Precision 5510 with a Thunderbolt3 port (USB-C).

The Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter only seems to be usable if it is plugged in at boot. If I plug it in after Ubuntu has started, it is not recognized. How can I make it 'hotpluggable' in Ubuntu?

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 Beta 2 with kernel 4.4.0-18-generic.

I don't have any other Thunderbolt adapters to test with at the moment (for video etc). Since it is USB-C I have connected my Nexus 6p to the computer and it will charge, but Ubuntu does not show it as a device that is attached. That however may be due to it being a Thunderbolt port and not a USB port, even though its a USB plug?

Kyle Gochenour
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  • Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! ;-) As Ubuntu 16.04 is not officially released yet you should use launchpad to file a bug so the developers are aware of this and can track it. – Fabby Apr 13 '16 at 07:23
  • See my longer answer below, but short response is the Thunderbolt 3 port is also USB-C, the controller supports both protocols through the one port. When you say "Thunderbolt to Ethernet" is it a USB-C Ethernet that came with the system or a separate one? As far as I'm aware the only actual Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapters were some TB and TB2 gigabit ones manufactured by Apple, you can convert them to TB3 with an adapter, but I don't think the Linux kernel properly handles this yet. – dragon788 Oct 11 '17 at 14:38

1 Answers1

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You will potentially have to upgrade your kernel to a newer release in order to get the full Thunderbolt3/USB-C functionality.

The port is capable of both USB and Thunderbolt functionality, but the Linux kernel drivers are still catching up.

Getting to use a Precision 5510 for work since May and working on the imaging process (preseed) I learned that we are using a specific version of the 4.10 kernel in order for the TB3 to work properly with the Dell TB15/TB16 docking stations. It seems like things are hit or miss when updating to the Ubuntu hwe-edge (their semi official 4.10 packages) and the version we are using is closer to mainline than to an Ubuntu build.

I've been deploying the spare 5510s that I was testing on to users, but I'll try a fresh install with the hwe-edge again and see if it works properly with the docks. The USB-C support has been pretty solid, but not everything is back ported to the 4.4 kernel.

Update:

Ubuntu 18.04 and the 4.15 kernel is WAY better than 16.04 and any of the supported Ubuntu kernels available there. Possibly in 16.04.5 with the linux-image-hwe-edge-16.04 if it is 4.15 it will be better in 16.04, but there are some excellent improvements with 18.04 all around, not the least of which includes not needing to limit the Gigabit Ethernet port of the TB15/TB16 to 100 Megabit due to an overflow issue in the drivers.

dragon788
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  • There have been kernel Thunderbolt 3 revisions since your post on February 26, 2017. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Oct 04 '17 at 01:59
  • Thanks for the bump, I've had much more personal experience with this now. – dragon788 Oct 04 '17 at 12:57
  • I have also tested this with my Dell Precision 7510 and both a TB15 and TB16 and even on the latest 4.4 kernel things appear to be mostly working. There is a workaround required for these docking stations and their Ethernet port, because it is behind a couple layers of USB running at full gigabit speeds causes a failure. You can downgrade using sudo ethtool -s <if_name> speed 100 autoneg on duplex full in order to be able to use wired networking with the dock. – dragon788 Oct 11 '17 at 14:35
  • Ethernet at 32 Gbps is unnecessary anyway unless its running over fiber right? – WinEunuuchs2Unix Oct 11 '17 at 14:48
  • With a TB3 active cable you can run 40Gbps peer to peer (not in Linux yet?) which is very useful if you were doing video editing of 4k as just a few minutes of recording can take many tens of gigs of data. In this case the limitation is you cannot run at the full 1000 Mbps AKA gigabit due to a scheduling issue with the driver in use. Oddly enough the USB-C gigabit adapter mentioned in the question and my follow-up comment uses the same driver but works perfectly at full speed, it is simply going through the dock's additional USB layer that causes the problem. – dragon788 Oct 11 '17 at 14:58