Is NVIDA Optimus technology supported under Linux?

Question

I have a Samsung laptop with NVDIA Optiimus technology. I turned it into a Linux laptop. Mint Linux 16 Petra, the latest as of this writing. My question is Optimus supported in Linux? Optimus as you know uses the GPU when doing heavy graphics and backs off when doing light stuff like web browsing leaving it up to the integrated graphics to do it.

Looking at the NVDIA forum, it stated that Optimus wasn't supported on Linux and no plans. But that was a forum post from 2010, 4 years ago. I chatted with NVDIA support , he sent me over to Samsung to ask. I chatted with Samsung support and the guy said, in essence, "dunno. beats me."

Does anyone know if Optimus works under Linux? I saw something about bumblebee but the only bumblebee I know anything about is the kind that makes honey.

Help!

Answer 1

Hi Joe.



The short answer is yes, Optimus works under Linux. I have a netbook with Optimus and it works fine. Even when the technology first came out, it was possible to run Linux on an Optimus laptop simply by disabling the nVidia GPU (i.e. you had to work with the power saving Intel hardware all the time). You can still do that, but there are workable solutions now for using the nVidia GPU as well. Demonslayer's claim that they take "up to an hour" to install is almost meaningless, because the time will depend on your Linux expertise. If you know what you're doing and you're using a distro that makes it easy, you can have it all working in a minute or two. If you don't know what you're doing, you could bang away at it for weeks and still have no success. The main thing is to know that it is possible; so keep Googling, because one way or another you *can* use your nVidia GPU. The gains (over the Intel graphics) may not be all that great, but on my netbook they were big enough to justify the effort of getting Optimus working (I used a solution like Bumblebee, though it wasn't actually Bumblebee at the time). Basically if you're not a gamer I wouldn't bother: the Intel hardware uses less power anyway so what's the point of activating the nVidia hardware just to chew up your battery? But if you want higher framerates for games, yes, you can get the nVidia hardware to work so do some research and get it working.



:)

Answer 2

Not sure what Linux version DeMoNsLaYer575 runs, but Nvidia is generally better supported in Linux than ATI/AMD. And it does not take an hour to install Nvidia drivers from packages in a Debian flavor like Ubuntu or Mint. What puts it all together initially is bumblebee and when you install nvidia drivers that should automatically add bumblebee-nvidia. The Intel graphics will be the default, but if you prefix a command with "optirun " it will use the Nvidia graphics.



It will get easier for the combination graphics as Linux versions are updated. I installed Ubuntu 13.10 on a laptop that has the combination Intel HD 4600 and Nvidia GTX 765M. Since my Linux is 64-bit and steam is 32-bit I had to add a steam.conf file to /etc/ld.so.conf.d and run sudo ldconfig, so steam could find 32-bit video libs. And I had to add a couple of libs that 32-bit programs could not find. And I had to add some command line parameters besides optirun to launch steam Source games. But once everything was set up games like TF2 ran fine with Nvidia graphics vs. unplayable with Intel graphics (too slow and sound would repeat in short loops).



The Linux version of Steam was specifically developed using Ubuntu and Nvidia graphics, and the initial Steam machines had Nvidia graphics running Steam OS which is their own Debian Linux version. Although, that is simpler when a computer runs only Nvidia (like my desktop) instead of the combination graphics.

Answer 3

just so you know the linux drivers are HARDLY supported... just installing the VERY basic drivers takes upto 1 hour



unless NVIDA changes their mind about hating Linux then they might... but i doubt if it would ever happen