NVidia Optimus inside Ubuntu Maverick

Asked By Lori Summers 10 points N/A Posted on - 06/09/2011

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone can help me with the problem that I have. I'm using laptop ASUS A42JC with VGA NVIDIA Optimus that can be switched to onboard if the AddOn VGA is not needed. I have dual boot operating system with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick installed in the laptop.

 

I have no problem with the VGA with Windows 7 but the real problem lies in Ubuntu. I have installed all the needed drivers but the only driver not installed yet is the VGA driver.

 

I have received recommendation from Ubuntu so I did install them, and as usual after installation completed I restarted the laptop. After restarted, I cannot use Ubuntu GUI only can access terminal. I'm confused I thought I installed the recommended driver for the VGA but why did it fail? Is this happening to ASUS only or it's a bug from Ubuntu Maverick?

 

I have tried re-installing Ubuntu for several times and still cannot access GUI only terminal. What should I do? Does anyone have recommended links for the VGA driver instead of using recommendations from Ubuntu? 

 

I have a broadband connection so the download process and all is quite fast.

 

Thanks,

 

Lori.

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Answered By John Tesh 0 points N/A #113813

NVidia Optimus inside Ubuntu Maverick

 

Hi Lori,

 

I’ve had the same misfortune of purchasing a laptop with the NVIDIA Optimus Technology which allows systems installed with it to intelligently use Intel graphics for power save, and NVIDIA for graphics powered applications.

 

Although the technology currently works for Windows 7, a selective few had the problem of not making it run on Linux, specifically Ubuntu. There are ways though, and it will need a bit of command line “Terminal” familiarity to make it work.

 

Remove the NVIDIA drivers which I suspect you may have installed by booting into recovery mode from your grub menu selection at startup and start failsafe-X. Once failsafe-X has started uninstall the NVIDIA binary driver by going to additional drivers under “System>Administration”.

 

Remove the "xorg.conf" completely or just move the file by typing "sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old" from the “Terminal” without the quotes. Some users do it so that they can use the renamed file at a later time. Reboot and the Intel driver should give you a working window desktop manager.

 

Some laptops have a BIOS setting that enables an option to choose either NVIDIA Optimus or Intel Integrated graphics chipset. You may have to reinstall Ubuntu to allow reconfiguration of the detected graphics card you have chosen. In this case the switching capabilities will be disabled for all operating systems installed.

 

On some Asus laptops, enter the BIOS by pressing F2 when the ASUS logo appears, go to “Advanced”, select "Boot VGA Controller Selection" and change it from "Windows 7" to "Others". Boot into Ubuntu where it will ask you to enable the NVIDIA driver. After it installs the driver, reboot once more and test the 3D graphics performance.

 

There exists a project called “Bumblebee” which is working to enable a fully working NVIDIA Optimus operating system environment on Linux. Go to this website for the complete instructions. “Terminal” commands should be followed to the letter. Copy paste the commands to your “Terminal” if unsure on how to proceed.

 

Additional reference for NVIDIA Optimus users are here or click here.

 

Good Luck!

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• Posted on - 06/21/2011
• Question Category: Laptops/Notebooks