Opensuse 13.2 hybrid graphics cards Nvidia/Intel

English Hardware
1

Dear all,

I have a laptop with hybrid graphics cards as you can see from lspci:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 860M] (rev a2)

I’ve tried installing Nvidia drivers following official documentation from Opensuse, in all possible ways: 1-click install, repository, and the hard way. But I always end up with “Oh no! Something has gone wrong” error from Gnome after restarting.

Gnome version: 3.14.0
Nvidia driver: GF8

Does Opensuse support hybrid graphics cards? Please provide any guidance. Thank you!

2

Do you mean this with “official documentation”?
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers
This page does state that the standard nvidia driver packages do not support hybrid systems:

Optimus hardware

If you have Optimus hardware, do not use the drivers from this page. Instead, proceed to the guide.

And if you install the nvidia driver, you even break intel’s OpenGL, because it replaces Xorg’s libglx with its own incompatible version (although the openSUSE nvidia packages do check whether they are installed on an Optimus system since recently, and do not activate their libglx in this case, leaving the intel driver intact)

A broken intel driver also breaks GNOME, as GNOME absolutely needs OpenGL support, and with hybrid systems the OS/DE runs on the intel chip.

Some laptops do allow disabling the intel chip in the BIOS settings though, in this case the nvidia driver should work.
Of course the nvidia card is always on then, likely needing more power/battery and generating more heat.

Does Opensuse support hybrid graphics cards?

Yes.
See here:
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee

3

Bad me!! Should have read the documentation carefully instead of just following it.
Will get back with the results after trying Nvidia Bumblebee. Thank you!

4

That worked!!
Thank you wolfi :slight_smile:

5

To hijack this thread: Is there a hybrid AMD/Intel description as well?
I have here

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mars [Radeon HD 8730M] (rev ff)

It tends to freeze the screen after S2RAM…

6

AMD hybrid is a bit different the you can change the GPU in the AMD settings program if you install the AMD drivers.

If you have troubel start a new thread since yours is not a NVIDIA card Also this is only on notebooks and does not apply to desktops.If you have a desktop then turn off the Intel GPU in the BIOS

7

I checked the BIOS, but there is no option to disable one of the graphics adapters…

8

As gogalthorp already wrote, there is no such thing as Bumblebee for AMD+intel systems.
The fglrx driver supports this out of the box.

And if it’s a desktop system, this doesn’t apply anyway, and there should be no need to disable the intel chip either (although some users seem to have to do that to prevent problems, especially with nvidia cards I think). It’s just not used if you don’t connect a monitor to it.

If you have further questions, please open a new thread as mentioned.