Nvidia Optimus on Linux Mint 17 - GT650M ASUS N56

sphe
  9 years ago
  5

My first tutorial - hope it helps somebody. Please let me know if I need to correct the post.

 

PROBLEM: Hybrid card not recognized (which resulted in loud fan, insufficient drivers for software).

In LM 15 & 16 it was necessary to install x-swat and bumblebee respositories - this is not needed anymore, and it actually broke the system in my case.

 

As of LM 17 (June 2014) the solution is much simpler. Start with a fresh installation, update the system.

Follow the steps below - it appears that the order is important.

 

From Package Manager:

 

install bumblebee with bbswitch-dkms

install primus

install bumblebee-nvidia  (the Manager will add a few dependecies - accept these as well)

 

From Driver Manager (accessible through Control Centre)

install recommended Nvidia 331 driver

 

To run software use i.e.:

primusrun wine

 

Enjoy!

Comments
eswag 9 years ago

I wasn't able to get this working using the described procedure. I made my own notes which may be of use.

Feel free to copy anything you like into this tutorial if you want.


simulacres 9 years ago

work fine for me, thx for this procedure


pirategeorges 9 years ago

I found that I had to install bumblebee as the installation's commands explained on the Bumblebee-project's home page...

Then with Mint 17, I had to install as you have written the driver nvidia 331 (in my case nvidia 331 updates works better).

Best Regards


pirategeorges 9 years ago

Seems Bumblebee are becoming strange? or Mint 17 changed too much? with Mint Maya I got no problem for installing bumblebee, but I wasn't able to use it with Quiana...
This tuto worked for me! But I had installed bumblebee first in a terminal

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


sphe 9 years ago

chemicalfan - Did you edit that after installing all of the above?

I did hear that sometimes editing bumblebee.conf was necessary, it wasn't needed in my current configuration.


chemicalfan 9 years ago

On my Sandy Bridge laptop with a Nvidia GT630M, in order to use nvidia-331 drivers, I had to edit /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf and replace paths that had "nvidia-current" with "nvidia-331", and set the Driver to "nvidia-331". But that was the only required change to get it working