Do docks and monitors work on Linux?

Monitors themselves are not the question. Plug in a screen by HDMI, DisplayPort or USB-C and it is detected, along with its resolution and refresh rate, and you arrange the screens in the display settings the same way you would on Windows. High resolution screens, mixed refresh rates and scaling all work on current systems, with mixed scaling across two screens of different densities being the fiddliest part.

Docks divide into two kinds and the difference matters. The first kind uses DisplayPort Alt Mode, where the video signal travels over the USB-C cable straight from your graphics chip to the screen. The dock is passing it along, not generating it. These need nothing installed and are the safer buy.

The second kind uses DisplayLink chips, which compress the picture and send it as USB data, then turn it back into video inside the dock. This is how most docks that drive multiple screens from a plain USB-A port work. Synaptics, which owns DisplayLink, does publish a Linux driver, offered as a repository or a standalone installer, and lists support for Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 23.04, 24.04 and 26.04. They also say plainly that they have not created drivers for other packages, leaving the open component of the driver for the community to repackage for other distributions.

So if you are on Ubuntu or Mint, which is built on Ubuntu, a DisplayLink dock is a supported path. On other distributions it is a community effort rather than a vendor one. Synaptics also points out that your dock maker, not Synaptics, is the one who supports your particular dock, so check the dock manufacturer's own pages too.

Charging and data over the dock are not affected by any of this. Ethernet, USB ports and power delivery through a USB-C dock behave normally regardless of how it handles video.