Linux on a Samsung X20 1730 XVM II Laptop and its Docking Station

The examined model is a Samsung 1730 XVM II laptop, which should be, apart from CPUspeed, the same as the 1600 XVM II, reports can be found at christophmueller.org and at ubuntuusers.de. It runs Debian GNU/Linux testing with kernel 2.6.13.2, patched for ACPI from 20050902.

Ports

• Power button
• PS/2 (new)
• 4 USB (instead of 3)
• LAN
• Firewire
• Power
• TV-Out (untested)
• DVI-Out (new, untested)
• VGA-Out
• Parallel (untested, but driver loads even without docking station)
• Serial (untested, but driver loads even without docking station)
• Headphone-Out
• Line-In (new, untested - should be the same as the laptop's Mic-In)
• Undock button

It also ships with an extra power supply, identical to the one shipped with the laptop. The only ports occluded by the docking station are the ports for Power and TV-Out.

There is one major difference between connecting the docking station when the laptop is already running or before booting the laptop: The port for LAN works in the docking station only when the laptop is docked on boot, thereby disabling the laptop's LAN port, even after undock.

Also the USB ports of the station seem to work more reliable when the station got connected on boot. Be firm and gentle in unison when putting the laptop into the station!
While the laptop is properly docked, its VGA-out and USB are disabled, but get re-enabled when you undock the laptop.
The Power button works as expected and generates an ACPI event when being pressed, so the laptop should shutdown cleanly.
A connected PS/2 keyboard even worked when docking the laptop while running; often PS/2 devices need to be connected on boot.
The Firewire port seems to work, because a connected harddisk is recognized, though failed to be used, but this is the harddisk's fault which never worked with firewire on any laptop to-date.
The Headphone-Out always works in the laptop or the station simultaneously, so it is likely to be the same for the Mic-/Line-In.
The Undock button does not seem to have an undocking function, at least not under Linux.

Docking State

On the hardware side, you can check a fancy blue glow around the Undock button, if your laptop is docked properly.
On the software side, you can check the output of lsusb. You get a new device on Bus 001 with manufacturer and device id: 144d:c019. You could use something like:
if [ $(lsusb | grep 144d:c019 > /dev/null; echo $?) -eq 0 ]; then echo "docked"; else echo "undocked"; fi.
There used to be some ACPI patches flying around for docking stations, but this one seems to work independently of ACPI.

Credits

• Sebastian Henschel