drivers – Bumblebee Intel+Nvidia on Ubuntu 15.10 Blackscreen Issue

bumblebeedriverskubuntunvidianvidia-optimus

I have a fresh install of Kubuntu 15.10, i have a msi GT70 laptop with optimus.

I have installed bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia, it is absolutely needed because nouveau keeps crashing at login.

So i edited /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf

# Configuration file for Bumblebee. Values should **not** be put between quotes

## Server options. Any change made in this section will need a server restart
# to take effect.
[bumblebeed]
# The secondary Xorg server DISPLAY number
VirtualDisplay=:8
# Should the unused Xorg server be kept running? Set this to true if waiting
# for X to be ready is too long and don't need power management at all.
KeepUnusedXServer=false
# The name of the Bumbleblee server group name (GID name)
ServerGroup=bumblebee
# Card power state at exit. Set to false if the card shoud be ON when     Bumblebee
# server exits.
TurnCardOffAtExit=false
# The default behavior of '-f' option on optirun. If set to "true", '-f' will
# be ignored.
NoEcoModeOverride=false
# 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
# Directory with a dummy config file to pass as a -configdir to secondary X
XorgConfDir=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.d

## Client options. Will take effect on the next optirun executed.
[optirun]
# Acceleration/ rendering bridge, possible values are auto, virtualgl and
# primus.
Bridge=auto
# The method used for VirtualGL to transport frames between X servers.
# Possible values are proxy, jpeg, rgb, xv and yuv.
VGLTransport=proxy
# List of paths which are searched for the primus libGL.so.1 when using
# the primus bridge
PrimusLibraryPath=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/primus:/usr/lib/i386-linux-    gnu/primus
# Should the program run under optirun even if Bumblebee server or nvidia card
# is not available?
AllowFallbackToIGC=false


# Driver-specific settings are grouped under [driver-NAME]. The sections are
# parsed if the Driver setting in [bumblebeed] is set to NAME (or if auto-
# detection resolves to NAME).
# PMMethod: method to use for saving power by disabling the nvidia card, valid
# values are: auto - automatically detect which PM method to use
#         bbswitch - new in BB 3, recommended if available
#       switcheroo - vga_switcheroo method, use at your own risk
#             none - disable PM completely
# https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Comparison-of-PM-methods

## 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-304
PMMethod=auto
# colon-separated path to the nvidia libraries
LibraryPath=/usr/lib/nvidia-304:/usr/lib32/nvidia-304
# comma-separated path of the directory containing nvidia_drv.so and the
# default Xorg modules path
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia-304/xorg,/usr/lib/xorg/modules
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia

## Section with nouveau driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nouveau
[driver-nouveau]
KernelDriver=nouveau
PMMethod=auto
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nouveau

I have

$ cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch 
0000:01:00.0 ON

I putted in /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf

i915
bbswitch

So i am able to do :

$ primusrun glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"
OpenGL version string: 4.2.0 NVIDIA 304.128

But if i reboot all i have is a black screen, to get my system starting i have to login in tty1 and do:

sudo modprobe nvidia_304
sudo service sddm restart

to get the kubuntu login screen any ideas to fix that ?

Also if i replace nvidia-304 by nvidia-355 i can't boot at all : the modprobe tip is not working.

Here is my config with lspci:

$ lspci|grep -i vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK104M [GeForce GTX 870M] (rev ff)

EDIT:

Also there is actually a bug with i915 module on kernel 4.2 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1494903

EDIT2 (working bumblebee solution):

I have manage to make this work https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthread.php?69190-Bumblebee-Nvidia355&p=381043

install nvidia-355 and nvidia-prime
select intel driver in nvidia panel and logout
install bumblebee only (not bumblebee-nvidia)
edit as needed /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf
line22 KernelDriver=nvidia
replace nvidia-current by nvidia-355
/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia
uncomment BusID "PCI:01:00:0"
as described here https://askubuntu.com/questions/29044…vices-detected,
you can now boot under intel card and use optirun and primusrun. It is working for me so far, test with primusrun glxinfo

EDIT3: (maj 03/12/2015)

Using ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa and ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa, after an update and reboot, I had a blackscreen using 358.16-0ubuntu0~gpu15.10.2.

So I purged everything and then just installed bumblee-nvidia nvidia-358, edited /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf and did sudo service bumblebeed restart.

It did work again after a reboot.

Best Answer

As you have quite new GPU hardware you should use new NVIDIA drivers and software as well.

Replace bumblebee with nvidia-prime to switch between integrated and dedicated graphics.

Reinstall the NVIDIA drivers, but first uninstall all NVIDIA software and remove the bumblebee.

Open a terminal and execute:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia* '^bumblebee.*'  
sudo reboot

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.

Install the stable NVIDIA proprietary drivers from the Ubuntu repositories (does not apply to ubuntu 12.04:

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

When you want to use the latest drivers - install them from the Proprietary GPU drivers PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-355 nvidia-prime
sudo reboot

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Laptop Nvidia Bumblebee clarification

It depends on how have you configured Bumblebee. If you open /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf you will see the following option:
```
TurnCardOffAtExit=true
```
Depending if it is true or false, Bumblebee will turn off the card for you after optirun finishes or not.
It depends if your applications use or not the GPU. In my system the discrete card is enough to play 1080p videos and use HDMI, so I really only use it for games.
When you installed Bumblebee it should have installed bumblebee-nvidia, which if I'm not wrong will install nvidia-current. You can check which nVidia packages you have installed with dpkg --get-selections | grep nvidia.
That's the strength of opensource: you have N ways to do something, and if you don't like any probably you are able to make your own way :) . In regard the driver, I would say the best is the one that is more recent and works (this may not always be true). So you can try each one and see which works the best.

If you read that file you will understand why. There are many options that you need to specify (ex: which driver to use, make Bumblebee turn card off or not, what Bumblebee should do if anything fails, etc)that Bumblebee can not guess by itself. For example, take this section from that file:

[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

If you only install nvidia-319 for example, probably Bumblebee will stop working because when asked to use the card, it will try to use nvidia-current.

So, if you want to make this as simple as possible, use nvidia-current or nouveau. If they work I doubt the performance increase to use a more modern driver pays the hassle. Primus is not required, but should give you a performance boost.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Laptop Nvidia Bumblebee clarification

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