HDMI to VGA - External Monitor Not Detected

Solution 1:

It will not work since HDMI is digital and doesn't support analog signals.

You could use an adapter.

There are two kinds of DVI signals

DVI-I, which has both analog and digital output, and
DVI-A which has only the analog output

So if you hook in the VGA → DVI cable, the signal will be analog on the DVI-end of the cable.

Since HDMI is digital, it doesn't support analog signals.

Extracted from here.

Solution 2:

The DVI to vga adapters are passive with no active electronics. The simply connect the analog pins available on some, but not all, DVI connectors to the appropriate pins on the VGA connector. If you have access to the proper DVI connector they work fine - I have used two of them under Windows for several years.

Connecting HDMI digital to VGA analog requires active electronics to convert the digital signal to analog.

An example of a dongle that does exactly that is the DINO DCA106-HV HDMI to VGA Dongle which is available at several well know Internet vendors. This dongle is specified to work with several versions of Windows - apparently without drivers.

The only question is whether it will also work with Linux, in particular Ubuntu.

If anyone has some actual experience with this device and Ubuntu I would be very interested in your results.

An additional fact that may be relevant, it is reported not to work with Apple OS.