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I have bought a new laptop recently it is the Asus K555LD and I have ubuntu 14.04 installed and up to date. One of the problem I faced is finding the driver for my nVidia GeForce 820M. After some time of searching and struggling I installed it using the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Now when I type the command: sudo lshw -c video I get the following output:

  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 0b
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:63 memory:f7400000-f77fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:f000(size=64)
  *-display
       description: 3D controller
       product: GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/810M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:d000(size=128) memory:f7000000-f707ffff

so I am a little confused because as long as I know I don't have an intel device, and then in order to know which driver the system is using I ran the command:

lspci -nnk | grep -i vga -A3 | grep 'in use'

the output was:

Kernel driver in use: i915

so my question is why do I have two drivers? and how can I use the nVidia one?

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  • 1
    You probably have two graphic chips, one on-board (Intel) and one full card (nVidia). I don't know if this is true or why one would build this into a laptop, but that would be an explanation. You see both devices have different PCI bus addresses, so I doubt it could be two driver modules for the same device. P.S: Please ask only one question per post, so remove your last paragraph and tag and open a new question for this issue. Thanks!
    – ByteBOT
    May 8, 2015 at 19:04
  • Thanx, I have removed my second question. and about my first question how do I tell the system to use the nvidia device?
    – Sami
    May 8, 2015 at 19:13
  • If I was sure about that, I would have posted an answer! :) Sorry, but I just don't know...
    – ByteBOT
    May 8, 2015 at 19:20
  • you can use nvidia prime-select <card> option more detailed here and here
    – JoKeR
    May 8, 2015 at 19:57

2 Answers 2

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You have a hybrid GPU (nvidia and intel) you can use bumbblebee to tak advantage of this, by default it uses the intel but the usage section will show you how to use the Nvidia

Important first step

Remove the driver you installed like this, a diffrent one will be installed later

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-current

This should cover any Bumblebee / optiumus questions you have, but for more information you can see the wiki https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee

Install on 12.04

You need to open your terminal and enter the commands below.

If on 12.04.3, replace linux-headers-generic with linux-headers-generic-lts-raring

Enable the Universe and Multiverse repositories - you need to do this to allow the bumblebee and nvidia packages respectively to be installed.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
sudo apt-get update

Install Bumblebee using the default proprietary nvidia driver for 12.04 - 13.04 :

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia virtualgl linux-headers-generic

Reboot

Basic Setup for 13.10 and later

You need to open your terminal and enter the commands below.

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus linux-headers-generic

Reboot

Advanced Setups

For advanced users, if you do not want to use the proprietary nvidia driver or 32-bit libraries (for example, if you are only interested in power savings), you can do your custom installation.

Minimal setup :

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends bumblebee

Depending on your needs, add to this line:

bumblebee-nvidia: proprietary nvidia driver support (if installed, become default over nouveau)

virtualgl: VirtualGL as backend

virtualgl-libs-ia32: 32bit support for VirtualGL on 64bit system, necessary to run 32bit app through optirun

primus: primus/primusrun as backend (virtualgl Stays default, you need to run optirun -b primus )

primus-libs-ia32: 32bit support for primus/primurun on 64bit system, necessary to run 32bit app through optirun

Usage

To run your application with the discrete NVIDIA card run in the terminal:

optirun [options] <application> [application-parameters] 

Example:

optirun firefox

For a list of options for optirun run:

optirun --help 

Normally you do not use optirun for your window manager, installations or other non graphic heavy demanding programs. The optirun command is mainly used for graphic demanding programs or for games.

Power Management

A primary goal of this project is to not only enable use of the discrete GPU for rendering, but also to enable smart power management of the dGPU when it's not in use. We're using either bbswitch (a module) or vga_switcheroo (kernel module, experimental) to do this in Bumblebee.

Since Bumblebee 3.0, this feature is enabled by default, using bbswitch. This allow automatic power management, without any configuration needs.

If Power Management doesn't work on your laptop, please go to this Power Management (PM) page and help to improve Bumblebee.

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  • Why do I need to install all of these packages? I can't seem to see any link that provides some info!!
    – Sami
    May 8, 2015 at 20:17
  • You don't need them all just the 13.10 + version sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus linux-headers-generic this is just 3 packages wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee This is the link, but its the same information, what info would you like ?
    – Mark Kirby
    May 8, 2015 at 20:22
  • The link in your post is broken. wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee
    – mkasberg
    May 8, 2015 at 20:24
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Go to the software and updates GUI, look at the Additional Drivers tab, and select the NVIDIA driver for your device You should not have to use 3rd party repositories for this.

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  • Actually, the xswat ppa is fine and has a slightly more upto date version of the driver, worth a look for desktop users who play demanding games
    – Mark Kirby
    May 8, 2015 at 19:49
  • I have done it the way you said and now in the additional drivers tab it shows that I am using the nvidia driver but when running lspci -nnk | grep -i vga -A3 | grep 'in use' I am still getting Kernel driver in use: i915 not nvidia.
    – Sami
    May 8, 2015 at 20:16
  • You should read about Bumblebee, as Mentioned in Mark's answer. Basically, your laptop graphics driver is designed to switch between a low-energy intel driver and a high-energy nvidia driver based on the performance needs.
    – mkasberg
    May 8, 2015 at 20:19
  • I have gone with your answer. now I can choose whether to use nvidia or intel device in the nvidia-settings command. I don't need it to be done automatically by Bumblebee as I am using my laptop for development.
    – Sami
    May 10, 2015 at 12:29

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