Hello people
I wondered why on laptops with Ubuntu / POP OS the switching between the two GPUs seems to work perfectly and on openSUSE (and probably other non-ubuntu-based distros) this requires installation and configuration (e.g. bumblebee). On Ubuntu / Pop OS, Steam sees the Nvidia Geforce (but not on openSUSE out of the box), as this is probably anyway what you want to be active for gaming. The Intel GPU is fine for office work and on the go because it consumes less power. It didn’t seem to make a difference if the proprietary driver for nvidia is installed or nouveau is still in place. Nvidia stated anyway, that they have no intention to support the switching function, called nvidia optimus. So it cannot come from nvidia, properly licenced (in ubuntu) or not.
On Ubuntu with a quick search I could not even find a package called bumblebee, so they probably have another fix. How does Ubuntu do this switching? Is that something, that other distros could adopt? Assuming, it to be properly licenced (I heard rumours regarding ubuntu…).
I asked this to Bryan Lunduke for the last #LinuxThursday show. Let’s see if he gets to answer this. In the last show he postponed one question because it requires research (could be this one). He said, he could only answer one tenth of questions, so let’s see.
If anyone has further information about this, please provide here or send it also to Bryan Lunduke. Perhaps this can speed things up.
Any help is appreciated!
Best wishes,
Simon
I think improvements in this area could make a big difference in getting openSUSE preinstalled by hardware vendors and also in adoption amongst mobile and still performance-minded people like students