Cannot access vga_switcheroo interface

English Hardware
#1

I use kernel kernel-default-2.6.34-12.3.x86_64. I have two videocards:

# lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce G210M] (rev a2)

As I underastand, this kernel has vgaswitcher turned on. I have my debugfs mounted:


# cat /etc/mtab
/dev/sda2 / ext4 rw,acl,user_xattr 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw 0 0
devtmpfs /dev devtmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,mode=1777 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/sda3 /home ext4 rw,acl,user_xattr 0 0
fusectl /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw 0 0
securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0
gvfs-fuse-daemon /home/pavel/.gvfs fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon rw,nosuid,nodev,user=pavel 0 0

But there is no directory /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo. So, I cannot use switcher’s interface to turn on and off both of my video cards.

#2

have same problem

#3

I don’t have experience with these hybrid graphics systems, but I wanted to know if both of you had this working at all, and it has recently failed, or whether this has been a problem from the beginning? Either way, it might be worth filing a bug report on this.

Anyway, for those who’d like to know more about vga_switcheroo, this kerneltrap message offers insight (but maybe not a solution). In particular:

4 combinations of systems typically exist - with 2 ACPI methods.
Intel/ATI - Lenovo W500/T500 - use ATPX ACPI method
ATI/ATI - some ASUS - use ATPX ACPI Method
Intel/Nvidia - - use _DSM ACPI method
Nvidia/Nvidia - - use _DSM ACPI method.

All I know is that some hardware implementations do not yet work.

#4

Looking at what was posted in kerneltrap seems like vga_switcheroo is not installed with the “Desktop” kernel in OpenSUSE I tried also installing the “default” kernel and did not find vga_switcheroo, a search on my /lib/modules for vga* did not find it either so I suspect either it’s in another package or it was not compiled to the kernel.

Oddly enough though when I search my package manager in YAST for vga_switcheroo and “RPM PROVIDES” I get the listing for all of the kernel packages.

Unless I am missing something seems the package will have to be compiled from source and added.

Is there someone on the OpenSUSE team that can definitively confirm or deny this?

I will get the kernel source and work on compiling the module as well as check for updates (OpenSUSE 11.4)

If I can get through compiling the module I will post it here. To the OpenSUSE team’s credit it has been a while since I had to compile a kernel and modules myself besides wireless. (last time I believe for the whole kernel and modules was in SuSE 9?)

#5

Desktop kernel series has vgaswitcheroo enabled.

You need KMS for both video cards (which means, that it won’t work with proprietary NVidia driver, only with noveau).

I observed on Acer Timeline (Intel+ATI), that the best results are obtained when both drivers are included in initrd (by default openSuse detects and adds only one of them). So you can try to add kernel modules for your video adapters in Yast2->"/etc/sysconfig Editor"->System->Kernel->INITRD_MODULES (“i915 radeon” for Intel+ATI).

Please note that this setting is sensitive to the order in which modules are listed and defines which card will be primary (in my case only above ordering works)