If I want to use Ubuntu 11.04, then can I switch between the two GPU's
on-the-fly in a similar way as Windows 7 - if yes, how do I do this?
The EeePC-1015PN is a corner case of hybrid graphics. As you know this Laptop defaults to nvidia - only mode in Linux (the intel GPU is not visible via lspci) but via sending a specific acpi-call you can set the VGA Mode for the next boot cycle manually.
This laptop has a rather unusual hybird setup. The nvidia chip is directly wired to the display device and hdmi port (most muxless hybrid setups are build without this feature) allowing this model to switch the GPU modes manually or use a dual gpu mode (there is no bios change required to set the gpu mode)
Available VGA Modes are:
- Intel only Mode (the nvidia chip is powered off and not visible via lspci)
- Nvidia only Mode (the intel chip is not visible via lspci)
- Optimus Mode (both chips are visible via lspci => bumblebee works only in this mode)
We are discussing this model since some time in a ubuntuforums thread (1), and prepared some helper scripts to set the VGA Mode for this model. To get bumblebee working, you need to install the eee1015pn-acpitools package first. Those scripts allow you to manage the VGA Modes of this model.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mtron/eee1015pn
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install build-essential eee1015pn-acpitools
Start the 'VGA-Selector' gui and set the VGA Mode for the next boot to "Optimus"
To use Optimus as default GPU mode, click on the 'Set Default GPU' button in the Settings Window. Also disable the auto-power down of the nvidia chip in optimus mode. The 'bbswitch' daemon shipped with bumblebee takes control over the power state of the nvidia gpu.
Now reboot and your laptop should be in Optimus mode.
install bumblebee via it's ppa:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install bumblebee
sudo usermod -a -G bumblebee $USER
To test if the nvidia gpu works try to start an application by prefixing it with optirun. e.g.
glxspheres
will use the intel gpu to draw the benchmark
optirun glxspheres
will use the nvidia GPU
Limitations of bumblebee:
- Performance of the nvidia chip via bumblebee is bad. glxsperes runs 3 times slower via bumblebee (compared to nvidia only Mode)
- HDMI port is not usable via bumblebee (the nvidia chip is directly wired to the HDMI port).
- no video acceleration. va-api is not supported on the intel GMA3150, and the nvidia vdpau technique is not useable via bumblebee
what progress is being made towards achieving the same capability as
Windows 7?
The bumblebee Project is just a temporary hack for hybrid-graphics on Linux. Quoting from Ubuntu's hybrid-graphics support strategy:
The kernel DRM work required for sharing GPU objects is not too
complicated, according to Airlie. (2)
The biggest blocker at the moment is that the X server has limitations
which prevent using GPU’s without attaching a screen to them. Airlie
proposed changes to the X server on the xorg-devel mailing list (3),
and he has been doing some work on this area (4).
Upstream (NVIDIA/AMD) Schedule: Once the X server re-architecting is
finished and released, the drivers just need to add support for the
new ABI in order to work. Highly dependant on when the actual X server
release is, of course. Aaron Plattner from NVIDIA has already showed
interest in helping with the redesign work (5), so it’s likely that at
least NVIDIA has support for it right from the start.
So a real solution will take some time, but people are working on it.
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1677780
- http://airlied.livejournal.com/71734.html
- http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/2011-March/020557.html
- http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~airlied/xserver/log/?h=drvmodelv2-wip
- http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/2011-April/021225.html
gdm
should be sufficient. Try runningsudo service gdm restart
next time - make sure you don't have anything open though since it will log you out.