13.2 install freezes (solved: switchable hybrid graphics to blame)

English Install/Boot/Login
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Installing 13.2 freezes my brand-new laptop. After booting the DVD and selecting install, I see three little green squares that light up one after the other. Once the third square is highlighted, the system freezes (DVD stops spinning after a few minutes). Sometimes it hangs with a black screen a little later, sometimes it even manages a step further to accept the licence agreement, but it freeze a few seconds after moving the mouse. Very weird.

Just for verification, I tried an old 13.1 installation DVD, and it seems load fine. I get to the dialogue for language and timezone without problems (I did not complete the installation.) The pre-installed windows also seem to work just fine. Memory test seems work fine (short test, long test to follow).

For installing 13.2, I also tried setting the resolution and Kernel “Safe Settings” within the DVD’s boot menu before hitting install, but this did not help. I also disabled WLAN and Ethernet Device within the BIOS, as googling revealed a one year old post by someone about the device being troublesome under Linux at the time.

Here are the specs:
Dell M4800, Core i7-4810MQ, nvidia K2100M, Intel Dualband Wireless AC7260 802

I was about to ask here, when I found a suspicious BIOS option:
“Disable Switchable Graphics” with the note that this options should be activated if the OS is any other than Windows or Ubuntu.

I had glossed over this option, since I had thought that the BIOS mentioning Ubuntu just meant Linux in general, but apparently Suse still has to catch up in this instance.

Disabling the switchable graphics option in my BIOS then allowed me to proceed. Googling the issue, I learned that “hybrid graphics” are all the rage for laptops now. Huh? What does that mean anyway? Upon purchase, I had thought that selecting the nvidia graphics option would yield a separate graphics card as usual before, but apparently this is not the case.

Since I did not manage to find any related information here in the forum (the HCL did not mention this problem and the symptoms did not point me to a graphics issue at all), I thought I just document my observations thus far for others to find.
Note that I am not yet finished with my 13.2 installation, as other unrelated problems occurred.

I still need to investigate what “bumblebee” and “nvidia-prism” really means, and whether one or both are the solution for me (as disabling the switchable graphics probably leads to either a bad graphics performance or an increased battery drain). Any advice on this matter would be welcome here!

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Yes you need bumblebee if you want to chose GPU’s at run time. What you have is an NVIDIA graphics chip + an Intel GPU on the CPU this setup is called Optimus. The theory is that if you want long battery usage you chose the Intel which is not a great video chip but uses little power if you want performance but shorter battery life then you chose NVIDIA. There are a couple of option some BIOS allow choice of which GPU to use. Not sure which GPU your option chooses

Here is the page to set up bumblebee and how to use same

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee

Note that you do NOT want to use the normal NVIDIA drivers you need the special bumblebee version. If you do install the regular driver you will not be able to use the Intel GPU So it should only be donwe if you manage to turn off the Intel GPU in the BIOS. The reason is the NVIDIA driver changes mesa and breaks the Intel

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Thanks for the clarification!

What about nvidia-prism? From my first glance, it appears to be the alternative to bumblebee?
I would prefer to use the closed-source binary driver, since I need to switch resolutions and head very often and I found that the open source drivers don’t do this well, especially switching several times in a row between different outputs. :frowning:

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Don’t know maybe works in openSUS maybe not. It is a known that bumblebee works. If you decide to check it out let us know how it goes. I don’t and would avoid such odd ball hardware meshups myself. :stuck_out_tongue:

The bumblebee stack uses the NVIDIA driver it is just modified not to change mesa which is the thing that kills the Intel. You also need something to tickle the hardware to cause the switch