[wildly OT] USB->VGA's ever any good?

[Justin Whear via Digitalmars-d]

On Tue, 19 Aug 2014 16:44:50 -0400, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

> Apologies for going so far OT, but couldn't think of a better place to
> ask.
> 
> Anyone know if those USB->VGA devices out there are any good? Also,
> reasonable Linux support with them?
> 
> I imagine HDMI->VGA is likely junk, since they'd presumably be limited
> to 60Hz output, which is just masochistic on a true VGA monitor (ie
> CRT).
> 
> But I dunno about the USB stuff. They would essentially be their own
> independent video card, right? Bypassing the PC's internal GPU. Or do
> their drivers take the framebuffer from the GPU and send it out through
> USB? In which case, would there tend to be some display lag?
> 
> Heck, I wouldn't even be asking, but it seems that getting native
> VGA-out on a laptop these days limits your options somewhat.

I'm using Plugable's USB 2.0 UGA (model UGA-2K-A).  Kernel support has 
come and gone with various regressions, but it's working great with 
3.14-2-amd64.  It outputs DVI but comes with a VGA and HDMI adapter--
haven't tried either of them.  I've got it outputting 1920x1080 and 
framerate seems fine, though I haven't tried watching video or anything 
on it.  With past kernels it's been plug-n-play, currently have to 
execute a single xrandr command when I plug it in:

xrandr --setprovideroutputsource 1 0

but it hasn't bothered me enough to track down why.