If you're looking for saving power, that's the recommended method: changing the BIOS setting to Integrated. It'll indeed turn the nVidia card off and rely on the Intel iGPU only. There is no need for reinstalling everything.
It'll also mean that you'll have to turn it on each time you want into Windows to play games. Not ideal.
Bumblebee supports power management scripts (although the use of it is considered experimental!). Do not use it unless you know what you're doing. https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/ACPI-Removed In the future (1-3 months?), the Bumblebee team has probably a stable kernel module which should allow to toggle the nVidia card.
If you don't have the option to switch GPUs in the BIOS then it's quite likely you have a muxless laptop, where the Nvidia GPU doesn't have direct access to the internal laptop display, and where it wouldn't make sense to switch off the Intel GPU.
Apart from the BIOS, there is a the vga_switcheroo
command, which allows one to change which GPU acts as the primary GPU, but this command doesn't work on muxless laptops either -- you're not missing much though, it's tricky to use, and only works on a very limited set of hardware anyway.
It's not that dire though, as you have three options available to you:
- Bumblebee (Nvidia)
- Nvidia Prime (Nvidia)
- Optimus Prime (Nouveau / Proper Linux Way(TM))
Bumblebee and Optimus Prime allow you to use the Intel GPU most of the time, but to offload 3D rendering to the Nvidia GPU on a per program basis, and Nvidia Prime allows you to 'switch' which GPU is active, but using software muxing rather than hardware muxing.
I'd recommend reading an article I've written (Driving Multiple Monitors on an Optimus Laptop) that should hopefully give you a better understanding as to your options, and allow you to confirm whether your laptop definitely is muxless or not.
Best Answer
In my case hybrid graphics work like a charm with bumblebee and kubuntu 12.04.
I've used the instructions in the wiki and worked with no problems.
ubuntu wiki bumblebee
My laptop is a Dell Inspiron N7110 with seperate Nvidia GTX520m card. Also I have ~25 mins more battery life than with windows.