At work I have a Dell TB16 dock for my Dell XPS 13. It's pretty sweet. I plug in just one USB-C and everything works. The first time I plugged it in, Ubuntu popped up a window that wanted me to approve the access to the computer from the dock. A nice security feature when you think about it.
When I did a reinstall and installed Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu, I did not get the prompt to approve access. Apparently Kubuntu does not have packages for managing Thunderbolt by default, and no graphical interface for it. Luckily I knew that the authorization was necessary, because I could have easily just freaked out and believed that the dock would not work with Kubuntu
Here are the easy steps I did to make it work on Kubuntu:
- Install bolt:
sudo apt install bolt
- Restart the machine (not sure if it is necessary, but can't hurt).
- List the devices with:
boltctl
The output will look something like this:
● Dell Thunderbolt Cable
├─ type: peripheral
├─ name: Dell Thunderbolt Cable
├─ vendor: Dell
├─ uuid: xxxxxxxx-7a0f-d400-ffff-ffffffffffff
├─ status: authorized
│ ├─ authflags: none
│ ├─ authorized: Wed 14 Nov 2018 03:01:12 PM UTC
│ └─ connected: Wed 14 Nov 2018 03:01:09 PM UTC
└─ stored: yes
├─ when: Wed 31 Oct 2018 04:11:14 PM UTC
├─ policy: auto
└─ key: no
● Dell Thunderbolt Dock
├─ type: peripheral
├─ name: Dell Thunderbolt Dock
├─ vendor: Dell
├─ uuid: xxxxxxxx-3b05-8680-ffff-ffffffffffff
├─ status: authorized
│ ├─ authflags: none
│ ├─ authorized: Wed 14 Nov 2018 03:01:18 PM UTC
│ └─ connected: Wed 14 Nov 2018 03:01:15 PM UTC
└─ stored: yes
├─ when: Wed 31 Oct 2018 04:11:45 PM UTC
├─ policy: auto
└─ key: no
- Copy the uuid and authorize the device with:
boltctl enroll [uuid]
If you only want to give permission for the current session, use boltctl authorize
instead of enroll.
Wired internet can be flaky
On Kubuntu I have a couple of times every day where the machine looses the ethernet connection through the dock. I have no idea what does it - it never happened on Ubuntu. If you have any idea what that is please leave a comment.