Installing The substitute driver for Nvidia's optimus

shizz

Hey guys. Im pretty new to Ubuntu and Im having a hard time getting this to install. Can anyone help me out. Im not sure which version I have to use and how to install it, or what precautions I should take because some of them list a few.

Anyone done this before? Running Ubuntu 11.10

croo

Nvidia's binary drivers do not support their Optimus graphic cards ... and the say they have "no plans to support Optimus on Linux at this time."

There are two projects that might interest you ...
Bumblebee : see http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/bumbleebee-brings-nvidia-optimus-gpu-switching-to-linux-users/
And Switcheroo: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTM3MQ

My own laptop has a BIOS switch that allows optimus to be disabled.
See my posts in this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1739976 on the subject.

In short I've basically found the IGP powerful enough for everyday use, and only enable the nVidia graphics now when I require multiple monitor support.

shizz

croo wrote: »

Nvidia's binary drivers do not support their Optimus graphic cards ... and the say they have "no plans to support Optimus on Linux at this time."

There are two projects that might interest you ...
Bumblebee : see http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/bumbleebee-brings-nvidia-optimus-gpu-switching-to-linux-users/
And Switcheroo: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTM3MQ

My own laptop has a BIOS switch that allows optimus to be disabled.
See my posts in this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1739976 on the subject.

In short I've basically found the IGP powerful enough for everyday use, and only enable the nVidia graphics now when I require multiple monitor support.

Ive tried bubmlebee but they told me to use Ironhide. I've tried to follow their instructions to download the program but Im having trouble. The terminal has said stuff like repository not found and I get errors.

Ill have a look at your other links in a while. Bit busy now. Thanks.

shizz

croo wrote: »

Nvidia's binary drivers do not support their Optimus graphic cards ... and the say they have "no plans to support Optimus on Linux at this time."

There are two projects that might interest you ...
Bumblebee : see http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/bumbleebee-brings-nvidia-optimus-gpu-switching-to-linux-users/
And Switcheroo: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTM3MQ

My own laptop has a BIOS switch that allows optimus to be disabled.
See my posts in this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1739976 on the subject.

In short I've basically found the IGP powerful enough for everyday use, and only enable the nVidia graphics now when I require multiple monitor support.

I've seen that bumblebee thing before and I've seen there installation tutorials but now they say to not use it and to use ironhide? But I don't know how to install it.

Also I have an asus laptop so I like the look of that one but I'm not sure how to activate it or whatever I have to do?

croo

I've seen that bumblebee thing before and I've seen there installation tutorials but now they say to not use it and to use ironhide?

Ah, I had not been aware of this progression.
I followed the instructions here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11318882 and now I have a working switching system - thanks for the heads up!
I need to experiment to confirm the battery lasts as long and the nvidia card is really powered down when it says it is but it seems to be working as expected.

shizz

croo wrote: »

Ah, I had not been aware of this progression.
I followed the instructions here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11318882 and now I have a working switching system - thanks for the heads up!
I need to experiment to confirm the battery lasts as long and the nvidia card is really powered down when it says it is but it seems to be working as expected.

Are you running it on a thinkpad too?

croo

Are you running it on a thinkpad too?

Yeah, I'm using a Thinkpad W520 - so that link is particularly useful for me. I had been reluctant to experiment with bumblebee because this is my work machine and I need it functional... but the instructions seemed quiet straight forward so I decided to give it a try!

If you don't have a thinkpad there a whole bunch of example scripts for various systems including

alienware.M11XR2
asus.1015PN
asus.1215N
asus.K42Jc.K52Jc.N53Jf.N53Jg.N71Jv.N73Jf.P52Jc.PL80Jt.U30Jc.U33Jc.U35Jc.U36Jc.UL80Jt
asus.N53Sn.U41Sv
asus.N53Sv
asus.N61Jv.N73Sv
asus.P31Jg
asus.U43Jc
asus.UL30Vt
dell.E6420
dell.InspironN5110.XPSL702X
dell.Vostro3300.Vostro3500
dell.XPS15
lenovo.ThinkPadT410
lenovo.ThinkPadT420

I used the T420 script for my W520 and it worked without issue.

I did have one issue with the instructions on the link, that is the path for the final cp & mv commands. There is a space missing in the first and /usr/share/examples should be /usr/share/ironhide/examples
e.g.

sudo cp -r /usr/share/ironhide/examples/ironhide-disablecard.lenovo.ThinkPadT420 /usr/local/bin/ && mv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard.lenovo.ThinkPadT420 /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard

croo

PS. while I had a problem with the UI App Settings program I was able to use the command line optirun to start apps with the nvidia graphics enabled. Later I found the UI App Settings problem was resolved here
https://github.com/MrMEEE/ironhide/issues/47

croo

croo wrote: »

I need to experiment to confirm the battery lasts as long and the nvidia card is really powered down when it says it is

Well, I got close to 6 hours on battery last night (I wasn't doing much other than browsing and emails), so the nvidia card is definitely being powered down.

Fluffy88

I just got an XPS 17 with an nVidia GeForce GT 555M so this thread will be very handy when I get around to installing Ubuntu.

Thanks for giving us all the info

shizz

croo wrote: »

Well, I got close to 6 hours on battery last night (I wasn't doing much other than browsing and emails), so the nvidia card is definitely being powered down.

Ive tried it there and I can't seem to get it to work. When I used the disable script i get this back in the command line

sudo cp -r /usr/share/ironhide/examples/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ && mv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard
mv: try to overwrite `/usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard', overriding mode 0755 (rwxr-xr-x)?

Could you shed any light on whats going on?

croo

it looks like you copied the command to cp some files during the setup into the actual commands!

if you cat /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard what do you see ... it should NOT be

sudo cp -r /usr/share/ironhide/examples/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ && mv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard

That was the instructions to copy the relevant example script files from the ironhide install to /usr/local/bin

shizz

croo wrote: »

it looks like you copied the command to cp some files during the setup into the actual commands!

if you cat /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard what do you see ... it should NOT be

That was the instructions to copy the relevant example script files from the ironhide install to /usr/local/bin

Sorry im not really following what ive done wrong? I didnt use that code during the installation, i used it afterwards?

croo

shizz wrote: »

Sorry im not really following what ive done wrong? I didnt use that code during the installation, i used it afterwards?

After you install ironhide you need to copy two files to /usr/local/bin

One to enable the nvidia card and one to disable the card;
ironhide-enablecard & ironhide-disablecard

The actual files you copy depends on the particular system, and there are examples script files in the /usr/share/ironhide/examples directory.

So, after the ironhide installation you need to copy the appropriate files to /usr/local/bin and rename them as ironhide-enablecard & ironhide-disablecard

The instructions on the link I provided did this with

sudo cp -r /usr/share/ironhide/examples/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ && mv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard

which is a cp & mv to rename ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv as ironhide-disablecard.

But it looks like you might have copied that command into a file called /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disable

your /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disable should be

#!/bin/bash
# This script should contain the command(s) necessary to switch off the
# nVidia card on Asus N53SV.
#
# Please note that the acpi_call module is need for these operations:
# http://linux-hybrid-graphics.blogspot.com/2010/07/using-acpicall-module-to-switch-onoff.html

rmmod nvidia
if lsmod | grep -q nvidia; then
 echo "Error: could not unload nvidia module, leaving card turned on"
 exit
fi

modprobe acpi_call
if ! lsmod | grep -q acpi_call; then
    echo "Error: acpi_call module not loaded"
    exit
fi

acpi_call () {
    echo "$*" > /proc/acpi/call
    result=$(cat /proc/acpi/call)
    case "$result" in
     Error*)
      echo "Disabling nVidia card failed ($result)."
      ;;
     *)
      echo "Disabling nVidia card succeeded."
     ;;
    esac
}

echo _OFF $(acpi_call "\_SB.PCI0.PEG0.GFX0.DOFF")

which is the contents of /usr/share/ironhide/examples/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53SV

And not

sudo cp -r /usr/share/ironhide/examples/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ && mv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard.asus.N53Sv /usr/local/bin/ironhide-disablecard

which it looks like it is from the error message you are seeing

shizz

Ah i think I understand. But what I don't understand is how I did that? I copied and pasted everything?

croo

That I can't help with

shizz

Ok so I think it has been working this whole time? I'm still not that certain though. I'm getting roughly 3 hours battery life and on windows with optimus running I get about 4 or under.

My laptop has a light that turns blue when the graphics card is off and white when it's on but Im not sure if it was software driven and not like "hardwired" to the graphics card being on or not.

Does this always keep it turned off and to turn it on to run something you use the command "optirun"?

I think I should be getting more battery life. What can I do to check if it is definitely on or not?

croo

I get a little icon in the toolbar ... when the card is on the icon turns yellow.

You can run an application with optirun at the prompt or clicking on this icon I mentioned, drop a menu down with an option to configure apps - all the apps in the menus are displayed and you can indicate if it should use the accelerated graphics or not.

There is another option in that menu that lists just those apps configured for acceleration. If you select one these from this menu it will launch the app with acceleration.

If you launch the app from the standard menu it does not use the acceleration. I guess you could change the menu properties to include an optirun command before the app ... but I am using Unity and I'm not sure where to change the menu properties for it.

shizz

Yeah I have the icon too. I could never get it to turn the graphics card on with the selected app. But I was selecting it from the standard menu so that's probably why.

I'm on windows no and I'm getting 3 hours and 27 minutes of battery life. Not much difference but I'm loosing nearly half an hour. Could it just be that windows is a bit more optimised with my hardware?

croo

It might be.

Can you switch the discrete graphics off in your BIOS? because that test would tell you exactly what the best case scenario was.

Mind you if you have the icon I mentioned and it never comes on then you are probably just using the integrated graphics so probably 3:30 is your limit. It does depend on what you do and to an extend on what hardware you leave on. It is possible to switch of all kinds of things off usually - from the obvious bluetooth & wifi all the way down to usb ports and scaling back the CPU.

http://beyondteck.blogspot.com/2009/01/improve-battery-life-on-linux-laptop.html

I rarely boot into windows so I haven't measured how long I get there to compare.