Ubuntu 11.04 and nVidia Optimus

After installing Natty Narwhal on my new Packard Bell Easytone HR11 it booted into Gnome instead of the new Unity desktop. After googling around I discovered that the nVidia Optimus technology was to blame. Optimus switches from the low power consuming Intel GPU which is used for basic applications to the more powerful nVidia GPU when gaming or watching movies. Optimus, as delivered from nVidia, is not available for Ubuntu.

Fortunately here is a solution for using Optimus with Ubuntu called Bumblebee. to get Bumblebee up and running first open a terminal and add the Bumblebee repository and then install Bumblebee.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mj-casalogic/bumblebee
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install bumblebee

During the installation you will be asked if you want to configure Bumblebee, select “Yes”. You will then be asked to select manual configuration or to view a list of configurations, select “Full List” and from the list select your laptop. If you have a Packard Bell Easynote pick “Packard Bell EasyNote TSX66HR: SteveYoung” and then “Use this Configuration”. In the next screen select “XV(Default)” You should then see a message saying that Bumblebee has been installed.

Now typing “optirun” before an application will cause the nVidia GPU to be used rather than the Intel GPU, with improved performance as can be seen below.

steve@steve:~$ optirun glxgears
* Starting Bumblebee X server bumblebee
_PS0 Enabling nVidia Card Succeeded.
[ OK ]
3178 frames in 5.0 seconds = 635.511 FPS
3326 frames in 5.0 seconds = 665.190 FPS
3122 frames in 5.0 seconds = 624.271 FPS
3250 frames in 5.0 seconds = 649.854 FPS
3174 frames in 5.0 seconds = 634.725 FPS
* Stopping Bumblebee X server bumblebee
_PS0 Disabling nVidia Card Succeeded.

As opposed to the fps without Bumblebee.

steve@steve:~$ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh. The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
302 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.277 FPS
301 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.160 FPS
301 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.160 FPS
301 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.160 FPS
XIO: fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server ":0"
after 2757 requests (2757 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

You can also install the bumblebee.ui using

sudo apt-get install bumblebee-ui

This places an indicator in the Unity notification area which changes colour when the nVidia GPU is in use and also allows you to configure which applications to use “optirun” with automatically.

Bumblebee uses the nvidia-current driver and I am not sure that this is the best driver for the GT540M which is in my laptop. I think that the figures of 650fps achieved with optirun glxgears can be improved on and if anyone has any ideas about how to do this please share them with us.