Linux Mint 17.1 Lenovo y50-70, installing/getting GTX860M to work with nvidia drivers

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So I have been trying to get my Lenovo y50-70 laptop, which has both the intel integrated GPU and a GTX860M, to run Linux Mint Rebecca 17.1.
I have installed the ppa repository

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

and the drivers

sudo apt-get install nvidia-343

as well as the bumlbee switch that supposedly I need as well.

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus

I have tried a couple of other methods as well and always after these installs when I reboot Mint I get "Cinnamon just crashed. You are currently running in Fallback mode".

Does anyone know how to successfully install and run the nvidia drivers on a laptop that implement this graphics switch?

(Also I have followed the guide with the rebecca distro 17.1 notes that say I need to change the grub boot to add "nomodeset" but to no avail).

Any Help would be great!

Best Answer

So after a lengthy process of many different methods I finally stumbled upon one that works:

This is for a fresh install of Linux Mint 17.1 (Rebecca)

  1. update completely sudo apt-get update & sudo apt-get upgrade

  2. Add 'nomodeset' to the grub loader i.e. sudo nano /etc/default/grub should look like this:

    GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

  3. install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia bbswitch-dkms primus through synaptic package manager because there are dependancies for these three that didn't show up on the apt-get call

  4. sudo apt-get install libcuda1-331 libvdpau1 nvidia-331 nvidia-331-uvm nvidia-libopencl1-331 nvidia-opencl-icd-331 nvidia-settings screen-resolution-extra
  5. gksudo gedit /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf

Change:

# The Driver used by Bumblebee server. If this value is not set (or empty),
# auto-detection is performed. The available drivers are nvidia and nouveau
# (See also the driver-specific sections below)
Driver=

to:

# The Driver used by Bumblebee server. If this value is not set (or empty),
# auto-detection is performed. The available drivers are nvidia and nouveau
# (See also the driver-specific sections below)
Driver=nvidia

Also change:

## Section with nvidia driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nvidia
[driver-nvidia]
# Module name to load, defaults to Driver if empty or unset
KernelDriver=nvidia-current
PMMethod=auto
# colon-separated path to the nvidia libraries
LibraryPath=/usr/lib/nvidia-current:/usr/lib32/nvidia-current
# comma-separated path of the directory containing nvidia_drv.so and the
# default Xorg modules path
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia-current/xorg,/usr/lib/xorg/modules
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia

to:

## Section with nvidia driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nvidia
[driver-nvidia]
# Module name to load, defaults to Driver if empty or unset
KernelDriver=nvidia-331
PMMethod=auto
# colon-separated path to the nvidia libraries
LibraryPath=/usr/lib/nvidia-331:/usr/lib32/nvidia-331
# comma-separated path of the directory containing nvidia_drv.so and the
# default Xorg modules path
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia-331/xorg,/usr/lib/xorg/modules
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia

Finally save the file, reboot and then test vblank_mode=0 glxgears you should get a high frame rate using the dedicated graphics chip.

You can also run programs with the dedicated graphics using optirun <application>

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