yo, I actually have the same graphics card, NVIDIA 740M GT, but on a toshiba laptop. I've been struggling to get my dedicated card working for a week or so, trying to use debian. Like you I had tried many reinstalls and hundreds of packages and fixes but I couldn't get it working. The problem was that the hardware is quite new and debian stable is very out of date. Linux mint might have the same problem, I don't know how recently their last stable release came out.
As far as I'm aware, it won't work unless 1) your linux kernel is up to date, 2) your nouveau is up to date, 3) your nvidia drivers are 319 or greater. some distros it's quite hard to satisfy all that criteria. It will be easiest to use the latest ubuntu stack. I have it working now on xubuntu 13.10 and it was quite easy:
-fresh install of xubuntu 64 bit 13.10
-install all updates on arriving in desktop ( settings manager -> software updater), reboot, check for updates again (don't install any proprietary drivers yet). make sure to have universe, multiverse and restricted package sources enabled. This step should get you generally up to date.
- https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates - add this repository. Again, in software updater, install all updates. This should update your xserver nouveau package.
-get synaptic package manager if neccessary (I don't recall if it is installed by default). in synaptic, find nvidia-319-updates, right click and install - it will take care of dependencies. reboot after this is done
-now in synaptic find bumblebee and bumblebee-nvidia. install them and it will take care of the dependencies.
Simple, you should now be sorted. You can run any program on your dedicated card using optirun Test it by doing
Code:
me@me:~/Desktop$ glxinfo | grep "renderer string"
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile
me@me:~/Desktop$ optirun glxinfo | grep "renderer string"
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GT 740M/PCIe/SSE2
There also exits a package on ubuntu called nvidia-prime, which sets the dedicated card to be used all the time, even to render the desktop. I wouldn't reccomend that as it kind of defeats the point of an optimus card. If you want to read about it you can find it at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/HybridGraphics . For me it was unstable and caused a lot of video freezes and crashes, so I'll stick with optirun and bumblebee.
Now however I'm in the position where the integrated card out-performs the dedicated one in benchmarks, so it would be interesting to see if yours is the same if you manage to get it working. See my thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2207239
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