Linux Mint & Thunderbolt Ports

[mbott001]

My laptop died last week (Asus i7 GL551JW) after 6 to 7 years of great service. I ran Ubuntu until they dropped Unity and switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon. It just did what I wanted to do. So I decided to stick with Asus and picked up a FX507ZE-RS73. Still an i7 (12th gen) with better video and two Thunderbolt ports (one is a 4) which is something I'm not familiar with at all. Simple question. How well supported are Thunderbolt ports in Linux Mint? My plan is to swap out the 500GB Windows SSD and replace with a 1TB SSD running LM 20.3 or LM 21.

Thanks for any input.

--
Mike

[Portreve]

Well, my 2011 MacBook Pro had a Thunderbolt port on it, and it worked just fine for connecting my external monitor to it. So, AFAIK it's a supported technology.

[mbott001]

Cool. I went ahead and installed LM 21 on the new laptop and all was going well until I selected the recommended NVIDIA driver to make use of the second HDMI monitor: Kernel panic.

So I'll reinstall the Win11 SSD while I decide that best way to go forward with LM 21.

--
Mike

[MurphCID]

The Lemur Pro, and T480s both have Thunderbolt ports, and they work just great. No issues either under Mint 20 or now 21. Corrected FOUND one issue, on ONE laptop addressed here: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=366860&p=2211824#p2211824

[mbott001]

Linux Mint 21 is up and running. Had to blacklist nouveau for the NVIDIA driver to run. But all's good atm.

--
Mike

[BwingBob]

Still an i7 (12th gen) with better video and two Thunderbolt ports (one is a 4) which is something I'm not familiar with at all. Simple question. How well supported are Thunderbolt ports in Linux Mint?

My Dell Laptop has a Thunderbolt 4 port and it works perfectly on Linux Mint 20.3.

Bob

[mbott001]

My Dell Laptop has a Thunderbolt 4 port and it works perfectly on Linux Mint 20.3.

Bob

Thunderbolt ports were new to me, probably because the last laptop was 7 years old. And I do understand they've been around a bit longer than that. Making use of them here for my SDRs. With a new laptop, I went with LM21.

--
Mike

[BwingBob]

My Dell Laptop has a Thunderbolt 4 port and it works perfectly on Linux Mint 20.3.

Bob

Thunderbolt ports were new to me, probably because the last laptop was 7 years old. And I do understand they've been around a bit longer than that. Making use of them here for my SDRs. With a new laptop, I went with LM21.

--
Mike

SDR? Software Defined Radio? I was not aware that there was a SDR that used Thunderbolt. Which one do you have? I have an airspyHF+ and RTL_SDR.

Bob

[mbott001]

SDR? Software Defined Radio? I was not aware that there was a SDR that used Thunderbolt. Which one do you have? I have an airspyHF+ and RTL_SDR.

Bob

This laptop only has 2 USB ports. Currently using a AirspyHF+ and a SDRplay RSPduo so I was one short when using a usb bluetooth mouse. So atm, the RSPduo is accessed through one of the Thunderbolt ports.

--
Mike

[BwingBob]

This laptop only has 2 USB ports. Currently using a AirspyHF+ and a SDRplay RSPduo so I was one short when using a usb bluetooth mouse. So atm, the RSPduo is accessed through one of the Thunderbolt ports.

--
Mike

That's cool, are you a ham? I use mine on my sailboat to receive HF weather faxes from the USCG.

Bob

[mbott001]

That's cool, are you a ham? I use mine on my sailboat to receive HF weather faxes from the USCG.

Bob

No, just a listener since 1967 when I assembled a Knight Star Roamer. Been hooked ever since then. I did pick up an Icom 7300 a couple of years back thinking it would provide the incentive to get my ticket, but BZZZT. Sold it late last year.

--
Mike

[Lady Fitzgerald]

That's cool, are you a ham? I use mine on my sailboat to receive HF weather faxes from the USCG.

Bob

No, just a listener since 1967 when I assembled a Knight Star Roamer. Been hooked ever since then. I did pick up an Icom 7300 a couple of years back thinking it would provide the incentive to get my ticket, but BZZZT. Sold it late last year.

--
Mike

The only reason I never got my ticket when I was younger and still interested in HAM radio was I couldn't learn Morse code (stupid ADHD) and had to settle for DXing.

In other "news", my System 76 laptop has a Thunderbolt 3 port. I was concerned that using a Thunderbolt dock on it might burn out the port since the laptop doesn't support charging over Thunderbolt (does than make it Blunderbolt?). I picked up a Thunderbolt dock yesterday and, just a few minutes ago, connected it to the laptop and the port didn't get burned out. Yay! I still need to do some more evaluating before I set it up on my desk and start using it.

The reason for my concern was I had a powered USB hub backfeed power into a USB 3.0 port on one of my Lenovo's and that burned out the port. That was...ah..."annoying".

[mbott001]

The only reason I never got my ticket when I was younger and still interested in HAM radio was I couldn't learn Morse code (stupid ADHD) and had to settle for DXing.

In other "news", my System 76 laptop has a Thunderbolt 3 port. I was concerned that using a Thunderbolt dock on it might burn out the port since the laptop doesn't support charging over Thunderbolt (does than make it Blunderbolt?). I picked up a Thunderbolt dock yesterday and, just a few minutes ago, connected it to the laptop and the port didn't get burned out. Yay! I still need to do some more evaluating before I set it up on my desk and start using it.

The reason for my concern was I had a powered USB hub backfeed power into a USB 3.0 port on one of my Lenovo's and that burned out the port. That was...ah..."annoying".

Right now I don't have a need for the Thunderbolt dock or the usb hub with only needing 1 usb port. When I was looking at laptops in 2015, I looked at a System 76 before going with the ASUS. I'd been an Ubuntu user since 2007. Switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon when Canonical dropped Unity.

As for not becoming an amateur, I guess I'm more of a listener than a talker. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a DXer. RNZ Pacific up on 7245 atm.

--
Mike

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The only reason I never got my ticket when I was younger and still interested in HAM radio was I couldn't learn Morse code (stupid ADHD) and had to settle for DXing.

In other "news", my System 76 laptop has a Thunderbolt 3 port. I was concerned that using a Thunderbolt dock on it might burn out the port since the laptop doesn't support charging over Thunderbolt (does than make it Blunderbolt?). I picked up a Thunderbolt dock yesterday and, just a few minutes ago, connected it to the laptop and the port didn't get burned out. Yay! I still need to do some more evaluating before I set it up on my desk and start using it.

The reason for my concern was I had a powered USB hub backfeed power into a USB 3.0 port on one of my Lenovo's and that burned out the port. That was...ah..."annoying".

Right now I don't have a need for the Thunderbolt dock or the usb hub with only needing 1 usb port. When I was looking at laptops in 2015, I looked at a System 76 before going with the ASUS. I'd been an Ubuntu user since 2007. Switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon when Canonical dropped Unity.

As for not becoming an amateur, I guess I'm more of a listener than a talker. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a DXer. RNZ Pacific up on 7245 atm.

--
Mike

The only reason for me to shell out the shekels for a Blunderbolt hub is I'm wanting to build an SSD dock so I can easily plug up to four 2.4" SATA SSDs at a time for updating backups simultaneously at full speed without tying up four ports on my laptop and having to horse around with desk space eating external drive enclosures. I would buy a ready built dock but the only two I have found that can do this run off of USB 3.2 Gen 2 so, at best, would run only two SSDs full speed.

[MurphCID]

Let me see if I can phrase this properly for the forum masters. On the System 76 Darter Pro, which is running Mint 21 with all updates applied to it, there is an ongoing glitch or issue with USB-C/USB-C Thunderbolt devices. If I boot the laptop and then plug in a thunderbolt external drive on the USB-C port, it does not see the drive. If I change the cable to a USB-A port cable it sees the device. If I boot the laptop with the USB-C cable already inserted, when the boot process is finished, it sees and brings up the drive so it can be used. This particular issue ONLY happens on the Darter Pro laptop. None of the other laptops with USB-C/Thunderbolt have this issue, ONLY the Darter Pro. I have never seen an error like this one.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Let me see if I can phrase this properly for the forum masters. On the System 76 Darter Pro, which is running Mint 21 with all updates applied to it, there is an ongoing glitch or issue with USB-C/USB-C Thunderbolt devices. If I boot the laptop and then plug in a thunderbolt external drive on the USB-C port, it does not see the drive. If I change the cable to a USB-A port cable it sees the device. If I boot the laptop with the USB-C cable already inserted, when the boot process is finished, it sees and brings up the drive so it can be used. This particular issue ONLY happens on the Darter Pro laptop. None of the other laptops with USB-C/Thunderbolt have this issue, ONLY the Darter Pro. I have never seen an error like this one.

I have something similar happen when my new Thunderbolt hub plugged into the Thunderbolt hub on my System 76 laptop. When I have the SSD dock I'm making plugged into the hub and the hub is powered on and connected to the computer, I can hot plug the SSDs into the SSD dock and they will mount. However, after safely removing the SSDs and unplugging them, if I plug any more SSDs into the dock, they won't mount. After removing a previous batch of SSDs, I have to either unplug the Thunderbolt cable from from the dock or the computer, then plug it back in, or I have to power down the hubs PSU, then power it up again before I can hot plug the next batch of SSDs in the the dock. Weird.

I'm going to put a switched, single outlet cube tap on the power strip I plug my computer's and the hub's PSUs into and plug the hub PSU into the cube tap. That way, I can just flip the switch to power down the hub's PSU, then power it back up. I will be able to easily reach the switch from my chair just by reaching down and to the right a little.

[mbott001]

Let me see if I can phrase this properly for the forum masters. On the System 76 Darter Pro, which is running Mint 21 with all updates applied to it, there is an ongoing glitch or issue with USB-C/USB-C Thunderbolt devices. If I boot the laptop and then plug in a thunderbolt external drive on the USB-C port, it does not see the drive. If I change the cable to a USB-A port cable it sees the device. If I boot the laptop with the USB-C cable already inserted, when the boot process is finished, it sees and brings up the drive so it can be used. This particular issue ONLY happens on the Darter Pro laptop. None of the other laptops with USB-C/Thunderbolt have this issue, ONLY the Darter Pro. I have never seen an error like this one.

I have something similar happen when my new Thunderbolt hub plugged into the Thunderbolt hub on my System 76 laptop. When I have the SSD dock I'm making plugged into the hub and the hub is powered on and connected to the computer, I can hot plug the SSDs into the SSD dock and they will mount. However, after safely removing the SSDs and unplugging them, if I plug any more SSDs into the dock, they won't mount. After removing a previous batch of SSDs, I have to either unplug the Thunderbolt cable from from the dock or the computer, then plug it back in, or I have to power down the hubs PSU, then power it up again before I can hot plug the next batch of SSDs in the the dock. Weird.

I'm going to put a switched, single outlet cube tap on the power strip I plug my computer's and the hub's PSUs into and plug the hub PSU into the cube tap. That way, I can just flip the switch to power down the hub's PSU, then power it back up. I will be able to easily reach the switch from my chair just by reaching down and to the right a little.

I've only encountered 1 issue with this ASUS TUF Gaming laptop and that is video driver related. Driver manager provides 3 Nvidia drivers (nvidia-driver-470, -510 & -515). Only the -470 driver won't through the system into an "out of memory" error followed by a kernel panic. But everything else I'm asking it to do has been good, so far.

--
Mike

[MurphCID]

It has to be something specific to this laptop, all the others work fine. So I suspect that it is an issue with the Darter Pro rather than Mint 21.