If you use nvidia-current-updates, you have to edit /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf and set KernelDriver=nvidia-current-updates under [driver-nvidia].
It sounds that you've just installed Bumblebee, but that you've selected the universe repository during installation. That pulled in the nvidia driver which broke your 3D acceleration and other OpenGL capabilities. Try restarting the X server, e.g. by rebooting the machine.
In case the issue still persists, it is possible that some libraries have been installed in a wrong location. After installation of Bumblebee, /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/ should not contain libglx.so, libglx.so.VERSION or nvidia_drv.so. If that is the case, remove those files (it requires root privileges):
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so* /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia_drv.so
You may also have to reinstall the nvidia-current package if Bumblebee does not work afterwards:
sudo apt-get install --reinstall nvidia-current
Re-login and your problem should be solved.
I succeeded on my laptop with external HDMI : see my blog here
I still need to figure out - at least if it's not a bug from the drivers - how to get everything working when actually NOT using HDMI because in my case it doesn't work (with nvidia drivers), but some others reported it's working.
Maybe you'll have better luck !
Cheers!
Best Answer
I think you're confusing technologies here.
NVIDIA Optimus is the codename for the dual graphics card split enjoyed by a wide variety of "gaming" laptops with "dedicated" graphics. It has nothing to do with any form of software, it's merely a type of hardware setup.
Thereby, NVIDIA Prime is NVIDIA's solution to implementing Optimus usability on Linux. That being said, NVIDIA Prime is closed-source. It also has an annoying tendency to drain laptop batteries, as the discrete card usually stays enabled due to the lack of per-application switching found on Windows.
The open-source software community attempted to fix this with the creation of the Bumblebee project. Instead of using the always-on or always-off mode of Prime, Bumblebee created a utility called
optirunthat allows you to specify whether a program should be loaded with the discrete graphics card or not. However, reports of Bumblebee's performance are mixed at best, and have been known to be relatively buggy.It would ideally be better to try Prime and Bumblebee (you can switch between them rather easily) and just decide which you like more (which gives you better performance, a longer battery life, etc.).