Setting two GPU in your laptop: eGPU in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Some months ago, I decided to buy a new laptop with enough power to crunch data. At that time, I also had a desktop with a GTX 1070, but I stopped using it because of the convenience of my new laptop. Having a GPU like the GTX 1070 dusting is not the best idea. Thus, searching on the internet I found that there are some External Graphics Card Dock that enables the capability to connect an external GPU via Thunderbolt 3.

I bought the Asus XG Station PRO. It is compatible with Windows 10 64-bit and macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later. Configure it in Windows was easy, but after installing the dock, the operating system was clumsy. I didn’t want to waste my time debugging the cause of my computer’s slowdown. Although it is not officially supported, I decided to invest my time configuring Ubuntu 18.04 instead.

I feel a little bit ashamed because it took me several hours to finish, but I found that it is possible. I hope that the following instructions ease your experience to set your eGPU.

These are the steps to configure an XG Station PRO with a GTX 1070 in a laptop Zephyrus M GM501.

1. Install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

I decided to install Ubuntu because of the community and their extensive support. You only have to download the .iso, burn…