Thunderbolt dock and Linux

By Camilla Krag Jensen naxoc |

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:

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.