Nvidia Optimus - Bumblebee or Ironhide?

[baby_panda]

Hi, I have a Dell XPS L501X laptop. It has nVidia GeForce GT420M graphics card which uses Optimus. My OS is Ubuntu 11.10 (32 bit). I have read that currently the only way to use Optimus graphic cards in Ubuntu is to install Bumblebee or Ironhide. Which one of these is better? I want stable software that does not crash my system. Should I install nVidia driver from official repository (nvidia-current) or ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates? Also, which profile should I use for configuring Bumblebee/Ironhide? Thanks.

[akoskm]

Just come over on optimus problems in the past few days (525 M).
I installed ironhide (I read somewhere that it is the next version of bumblebee, codenamed like that).
Don't install any of the restricted drivers like nvidia-current and such, ironhide will take care about those things.
You will find the basic instructions about enabling your cards on the project site:
http://linux-hybrid-graphics.blogspo...including.html

Good luck.

[moldaviax]

hi
I haven't tried either of those yet, just found out about ironhide the other day.
Do they require the nouveau driver? I thought the nvidia drivers were on the whole recommended over nouveau for power consumption etc?

M.

[akoskm]

hi
I haven't tried either of those yet, just found out about ironhide the other day.
Do they require the nouveau driver? I thought the nvidia drivers were on the whole recommended over nouveau for power consumption etc?

M.

No, they require the official nvidia drivers. I just warned you to don't install anything by "hand", ironhide will take care about the drivers.

[jocheem67]

I've been using bumblebee on arch > drawback is that it provided no energysaving-features. That might have changed though ans is worth looking into.
I use acpi_call with success. This disables the nvidia and just addresses the intel graphic chip. That's on linux mint based on 10.04. It needs some configuration though. Advantage is that it's a good solution regarding powerconsumption on my dell xps15 ( 502 )..
I've got no need to use the nvidia 520 as I still have win7 installed for the heavier duties.
I guess it all depends on your needs. If you wanna use the nvidia , then ironhide or bumblebee, otherwise I'd say look into the acpi_call method.

[akoskm]

For the same reason I switched to win 7, ironhide failed to disable my nvidia card, so wasn't really power saving. I also managed to got a free copy of windows through the Academic Alliance program on my university, so in long term this was cheaper solution.
Regardless my current current OS I'm looking forward for the improvements on the field of hybrid graphics on Linux, I've been using only linux for more than 5 years..

[foxy123]

For the same reason I switched to win 7, ironhide failed to disable my nvidia card, so wasn't really power saving. I also managed to got a free copy of windows through the Academic Alliance program on my university, so in long term this was cheaper solution.
Regardless my current current OS I'm looking forward for the improvements on the field of hybrid graphics on Linux, I've been using only linux for more than 5 years..

So you can't disable nVidia card using Ironhide?

[akoskm]

So you can't disable nVidia card using Ironhide?

IIRC when I opened the ironhide-settings and and tried to modify the power saving options, whatever I chose it said that disabling the card failed, like in the test what I linked here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...10&postcount=2

[foxy123]

IIRC when I opened the ironhide-settings and and tried to modify the power saving options, whatever I chose it said that disabling the card failed, like in the test what I linked here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...10&postcount=2

I've got as follows but don't know what it means (I don't have glxgears but glxsheres):

~$ optirun glxspheres 
Polygons in scene: 62464
Visual ID of window: 0x94
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Mobile 
19.536200 frames/sec - 21.802399 Mpixels/sec
19.755290 frames/sec - 22.046904 Mpixels/sec
19.651736 frames/sec - 21.931338 Mpixels/sec
19.941070 frames/sec - 22.254234 Mpixels/sec
19.940653 frames/sec - 22.253769 Mpixels/sec
19.939750 frames/sec - 22.252761 Mpixels/sec
19.946976 frames/sec - 22.260825 Mpixels/sec
19.935810 frames/sec - 22.248364 Mpixels/sec
19.944216 frames/sec - 22.257745 Mpixels/sec
19.937466 frames/sec - 22.250212 Mpixels/sec
19.944045 frames/sec - 22.257554 Mpixels/sec
19.945949 frames/sec - 22.259679 Mpixels/sec
19.935601 frames/sec - 22.248131 Mpixels/sec
19.937293 frames/sec - 22.250019 Mpixels/sec
19.779300 frames/sec - 22.073699 Mpixels/sec
19.917491 frames/sec - 22.227920 Mpixels/sec
19.796578 frames/sec - 22.092981 Mpixels/sec
19.778818 frames/sec - 22.073161 Mpixels/sec
^Z
[1]+  Stopped                 optirun glxspheres

[akoskm]

You are getting low framerates, look like only intel is working (OpenGL Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Mobile).
In my test I got around ~1k which indicates that the nvidia card was working too, however I'm not sure should it switch on by default on such test like glxspheres...