Moving Closer To NVIDIA Optimus On Linux

[Julius]

I have to agree here... optimus is running fine via bumblebee/ironhide on Ubuntu systems.
It is technically speaking of course not an optimal solution, and in 3D modeling applications I have some minor graphical bugs due to the compression algorithm used in the picture transfer, but for all practical purposes (aka gaming) it works fine in 95% of all cases.

[Lekensteyn]

From what I know there is already optimus support under linux with bumblebee ( a very active project ), it uses virtualgl to run applications on discrete graphic cards ( and it WORKS ), it also use a kernel module called bbswitch to turn off card ( acpi_call and vgaswitcheroo too ). Power management is still experimental ( you have to find the right call for your card if you want to use acpi_call ) but it works.

It was first developped in bash but a new daemon and client rewritten in C are under developpement.

homepage : https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project

I would not call it "support" but a "workaround". Dave Airlie is working on a real solution that actually solves the underlying problem. In Bumblebee 3.0, a module has been added that can disable (and enable) the card on request (indeed, bbswitch). Using acpi_call directly is not recommended as it does not survive suspend (because some settings are lost after resume) and you need to input calls from which you cannot be sure that those are actually correct (as an user).

The patch I contributed to vga_switcheroo adds support for Optimus to vga_switcheroo. There is still a suspend issue with vga_switcheroo which Dave is aware of. In bbswitch, I solved it by enabling the card before suspend and disable it after resume. This always works but is the worst option. I've other patches that fixed it for suspend, but those were made in nouveau and since it also affects AMD hardware, the problem is better solved in vga_switcheroo.

[jojib_42]

First of all, mrMeee dropped support for original bumblebee ( which is deprecated since 4 months ) and ironhide ( it is deprecated too now DO NOT USE IRONHIDE ), new bumblebee implementation is the bumblebee-project ( a COMPLETE REWRITE of original bumblebee and ironhide ), current release is in bash and the 3.0 will be in C ( current codename is bumblebeed ). There are 6 people working on the project.

While the current bumblebee implementation is not as good as window's one, it does work ! Some applications doesn't have support but for most It works realy well, the only other issue is the speed which is still lower than on windows ( this problem comes directly for virtualgl, which was not designed in the way the bumblebee team is using it ).
The performance issue will may be be solved by using a compositing window manager instead of VGL ( It was said on the bumblebee issues list ), speed might bee 100 or 200x faster in the future ...

For the acpi support most laptop will be supported by default without even having to find scripts ( bumblebee won't use acpi_call anymore, no more call needed ) by using the bbswitch kernel module ( or an optimus-patched vga_switcheroo ).

[alazar]

For the acpi support most laptop will be supported by default without even having to find scripts ( bumblebee won't use acpi_call anymore, no more call needed ) by using the bbswitch kernel module ( or an optimus-patched vga_switcheroo ).

Indeed, I'm using bumblebee 3.0 right now and everything works without acpi call scripts. Bumblebee is a great project and it'll be better in the future for sure.