Bumblebee

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⇤ ← Revision 64 as of 2012-11-09 22:31:27 →
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Editor: ip4da018ae
Comment: sigh 12.10 does not install linux-headers...
← Revision 65 as of 2012-11-17 21:04:29 → ⇥
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Editor: c-174-55-160-197
Comment: Update version and remove deprecated usergroup note
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Bumblebee 3.0 is supported up to Ubuntu version 12.04. Bumblebee 3.0 is supported up to Ubuntu version 12.10.
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Formerly, you had to add a user manually to a group with
`sudo gpasswd -a $USER bumblebee`. As of version 3.0-2, which was
released on April 30th 2012, this is not necessary anymore for new installations.
With that version, the 32-bit libraries are also installed automatically
on Oneiric and later.
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    `sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends bumblebee linux-headers-generic`  `sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends bumblebee linux-headers-generic`

Bumblebee Project

Bumblebee aims to provide support for NVIDIA Optimus laptops for GNU/Linux distributions. Using Bumblebee, you can use your NVIDIA card for rendering graphics which will be displayed using the Intel card.

Installation

Bumblebee 3.0 is supported up to Ubuntu version 12.10.

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

  1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable

  2. For more up-to-date nvidia drivers, you need to add another PPA. As of 12.04, this is still necessary for Nvidia GT 6xxM cards. It may be optional for the GT 4xxM and GT 5xxM series on 12.04. When in doubt, just install it. The command is:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

  3. sudo apt-get update

  4. Install Bumblebee using the proprietary nvidia driver:

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

  5. Reboot or re-login

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), install bumblebee with:

  • sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends bumblebee linux-headers-generic

linux-headers-generic is necessary since bbswitch (the power saving module) is a kernel module.

Upgrading

If you already got Bumblebee installed on your system, upgrade to Bumblebee 3.0.

Please, follow the instructions on this wiki: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Upgrading-on-Ubuntu

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.

IRC

Please join #bumblebee channel on Freenode if you wish to help testing and creating the installer.

Reporting bugs/problems

First of all: If you have any problem, please read this article: http://wiki.Bumblebee-Project.org/Troubleshooting

If your issue is not solved, you can join the #bumblebee IRC channel to ask for help (recommended). See also http://wiki.Bumblebee-Project.org/Reporting-Issues

If you're asked to create a bugreport, run the next command in a terminal: sudo bumblebee-bugreport

Uninstall

If you're unsatisfied with Bumblebee, you can remove it via:

  1. sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

  2. sudo ppa-purge ppa:bumblebee/stable

If you want to keep some programs from the bumblebee repository, you can also suffice by removing Bumblebee only (including its dependencies):

  1. sudo apt-get purge bumblebee

  2. sudo apt-get --purge autoremove

Social Media

Follow us on: Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

CUDA

There is sometimes confusion about CUDA. You don't need Bumblebee to run CUDA. Follow the How-to to get CUDA working under Ubuntu.

CategoryHardware

Bumblebee (last edited 2015-05-03 11:04:05 by penalvch)