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I have a fresh installation of ubuntu gnome 15.10 and I cannot get bumblebee optirun to work. My laptop has the optimus setup with Intel and Nvidia graphics cards. I get the following error trying to use optirun:

~$optirun firefox
[ 4580.965189] [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: [XORG] (EE) [drm] KMS not enabled

[ 4580.965358] [ERROR]Aborting because fallback start is disabled.

I thought KMS was enabled by default with newer kernels but I'm not certain of this. Do I need to use bbswitch first?

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

Remove bumblebee and use nvidia-prime to switch between the two graphics solutions instead.

First identify your NVIDIA graphics hardware - open a terminal and execute:

lspci -k | grep -EA2 'VGA|3D'

Search for available drivers on the NVIDIA Drivers website.

Update :

Uninstall every NVIDIA related software ...

When the GRUB boot menu appears : Highlight the Ubuntu menu entry and press the E key.
Add the nouveau.modeset=0 parameter to the end of the linux line ... Then press F10 to boot.

When the login screen appears press Ctrl+Alt+F1.

Enter user name and password - then execute :

sudo apt-get purge nvidia* bumblebee  
sudo reboot

Update :

Install the latest stable NVIDIA drivers ...

When the GRUB boot menu appears : Highlight the Ubuntu menu entry and press the E key.
Add the nouveau.modeset=0 parameter to the end of the linux line ... Then press F10 to boot.

When the login screen appears press Ctrl+Alt+F1.

Enter user name and password - then execute : 

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-352 nvidia-prime
sudo reboot

Use the NVIDIA X Server Settings application (Prime Profiles) to switch between the two GPU's.

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  • Yes, I am a new user to this group. I did follow the instructions above and my desktop has now completely failed. I'm hoping I don't have to reinstall everything, I was really in love with it.
    – user3174452
    Nov 24, 2015 at 15:22
  • @user3174452 What graphics card do you have and which drivers did you install ?
    – cl-netbox
    Nov 24, 2015 at 15:33
  • It's an nvidia geforce 840m card and I installed the nvidia-358* driver I believe.
    – user3174452
    Nov 24, 2015 at 15:38
  • @user3174452 There must have been something going wrong with the installation process ... I will update the answer with an alternative way to install and include the latest long-lived branch drivers ... please stay tuned - it will take a few minutes. :)
    – cl-netbox
    Nov 24, 2015 at 15:46
  • Do you not recommend purging nouveau? I would prefer not to.
    – user3174452
    Nov 25, 2015 at 0:45

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