I now have a working setup to choose nvidia or intel at boot time. Thank you gschwnd for all the work, and all others too.
The main differences in Ubuntu are:
- Couldn't get nvidia to work when efifb is disabled, but when efifb is enabled, nvidia works with just modprobe nvidia. (It should work like in gschwnd's wiki with apple-gmux 0/1 etc, but might be some difference between Ubuntu and Gentoo that I couldn't figure out. Also I tested before updating SMC in OS X, don't know if it changes things).
- So I use two kernels, one with efifb enabled, one with efifb disabled (CONFIG_FB_EFI in kernel's .config).
- With the /etc/init.d/.. method I couldn't get the script to run before X, I found a diff way to do it by editing lightdm.conf.
Versions:
- Kernel 3.8.0-19 (ubuntu default in raring), compiled another copy of it without efifb. Now updating to -21, should work the same. In the normal kernel version terms it is kernel 3.8.8.
- Nvidia driver 310.51 from nvidia.com (couldn't get brightness to work with newer, also kernel must be 3.8.8 for brightness to work (didn't work in 3.9.2 atleast)).
Other notes:
- I have updated the SMC in OS X (don't know if it improves anything, but it doesn't mess up gfx linux).
- I have GfxCardStatus set to "Dynamic" in OS X now.
- I'm running XFCE (Xubuntu), but I think lightdm is default in Ubuntu too? so all scripts etc should work the same.
- Switching GLX between intel/nvidia is really slow now.. Especially when you switch to nvidia. I didn't spend much time to find a better way. Anyway the script does it only when you switch intel/nvidia, not when you just reboot using the same adapter. More notes in the switch_nvidia script.
- You have to suspend/resume after booting. With nvidia it fixes the brightness controls, with intel it stops the screen from flickering occasionally.
The instructions (at your own risk) (advanced users only)
Links: gschwnd's wiki for gentoo: http://www.hzog.net/index.php?title=...%22_%282012%29
1. Blacklist modules like in gscwnd's wiki.
2. Edit /etc/init/lightdm.conf (changes in bold):
3. New file /root/switch_nvidia, make it executable by root. (For security it's good to set chown root:root too etc..):
NOTE: Will delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf when intel is used, so back it up first if needed. More info in the script.
4. /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nvidia: like in gschwnd's wiki (default nvidia xorg.conf with Option "UseDPLib" "no" in device section).
5. Put NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-310.51.run in /root/ (from nvidia.com) (No need for exec perms, but for security chown root:root etc..).
6. Now when you choose a kernel with efifb in grub, nvidia is used. When you choose a kernel without efifb, intel is used.
The main differences in Ubuntu are:
- Couldn't get nvidia to work when efifb is disabled, but when efifb is enabled, nvidia works with just modprobe nvidia. (It should work like in gschwnd's wiki with apple-gmux 0/1 etc, but might be some difference between Ubuntu and Gentoo that I couldn't figure out. Also I tested before updating SMC in OS X, don't know if it changes things).
- So I use two kernels, one with efifb enabled, one with efifb disabled (CONFIG_FB_EFI in kernel's .config).
- With the /etc/init.d/.. method I couldn't get the script to run before X, I found a diff way to do it by editing lightdm.conf.
Versions:
- Kernel 3.8.0-19 (ubuntu default in raring), compiled another copy of it without efifb. Now updating to -21, should work the same. In the normal kernel version terms it is kernel 3.8.8.
- Nvidia driver 310.51 from nvidia.com (couldn't get brightness to work with newer, also kernel must be 3.8.8 for brightness to work (didn't work in 3.9.2 atleast)).
Other notes:
- I have updated the SMC in OS X (don't know if it improves anything, but it doesn't mess up gfx linux).
- I have GfxCardStatus set to "Dynamic" in OS X now.
- I'm running XFCE (Xubuntu), but I think lightdm is default in Ubuntu too? so all scripts etc should work the same.
- Switching GLX between intel/nvidia is really slow now.. Especially when you switch to nvidia. I didn't spend much time to find a better way. Anyway the script does it only when you switch intel/nvidia, not when you just reboot using the same adapter. More notes in the switch_nvidia script.
- You have to suspend/resume after booting. With nvidia it fixes the brightness controls, with intel it stops the screen from flickering occasionally.
The instructions (at your own risk) (advanced users only)
Links: gschwnd's wiki for gentoo: http://www.hzog.net/index.php?title=...%22_%282012%29
1. Blacklist modules like in gscwnd's wiki.
2. Edit /etc/init/lightdm.conf (changes in bold):
Code:
...
emits login-session-start
emits desktop-session-start
emits desktop-shutdown
pre-start script
/root/switch_nvidia
end script
script
if [ -n "$UPSTART_EVENTS" ]
then
# Check kernel command-line for inhibitors, unless we are being called
...NOTE: Will delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf when intel is used, so back it up first if needed. More info in the script.
Code:
#!/bin/bash
# Modified by Kimmo Satta from http://www.hzog.net/index.php?title=Linux_on_MacBook_Pro_Retina_15%22_%282012%29
# Original script license info:
# Copyright 1999-2012 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# uncomment to enable logging
#logfile=/home/user/temp/switchnv.log
#exec >> $logfile 2>&1
# you can change this to install diff ver of nvidia driver
NVIDIA_INSTALLER="/root/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-310.51.run"
# this is just used to check which glx is already installed, so it isn't reinstalled on every boot, if not needed..
INSTALLED_GLX_FILE="/root/installed_glx.txt"
# could improve this check if needed.. now "#CONFIG_FB_EFI=y" would be detected wrong..
if grep -q "CONFIG_FB_EFI=y" /boot/config-`uname -r`
then
# efi fb in use, use nvidia
echo "NVMODE"
ln -sf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nvidia /etc/X11/xorg.conf
if [ x`cat $INSTALLED_GLX_FILE` != "xnvidia" ]
then
# TODO: very slow (/overkill) for just changing glx, but works..
# The part that takes longest is probably compiling the dkms kernel module, couldn't find any option to skip that, keeping the old module.
# Should also be possible by switching some symlinks in /usr/lib/.. glxfoo, but haven't used time to figure it out.
# Could check how "eselect opengl set..." works in gentoo, or figure out a way to install glx-alternative-nvidia etc packages in Ubuntu
# (they have been broken in the repos for years apparently).
# switch to nvidia glx
sh $NVIDIA_INSTALLER -as
echo "nvidia" > $INSTALLED_GLX_FILE
fi
# when efi fb is enabled, apple-gmux binary (apple-gmux 0/1 etc) doesn't work, but nvidia seems to be connected to gmux by default, so just modprobe nvidia is enough.
modprobe nvidia
# I use this little and simple (:D) command to set the current graphic adapter name in the xfce clock.
# sed -i 's/property name="digital-format" type="string" value=".*"/property name="digital-format" type="string" value="\<span color=\"#FF0000\"\>NVIDIA\<\/span\> %a, %d %b %Y %H:%M"/g' /home/ksatta/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml
# X didn't start every time, seems to work now with this sleep
sleep 1
else
# no efi fb, use intel
echo "INTELMODE"
# you could use the ln if you want, usually no xorg.conf needed for intel..
# ln -sf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nouveau /etc/X11/xorg.conf
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
/root/apple-gmux 0
modprobe i915
modprobe nouveau
if [ -e /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch ]
then
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
fi
if [ x`cat $INSTALLED_GLX_FILE` != "xintel" ]
then
# TODO: not the best/fastest way to just change glx, but works..
# switch to intel glx
# might not need all these, haven't tested much. This works anyway.
apt-get install -y --reinstall --no-download xserver-xorg-core libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
echo "intel" > $INSTALLED_GLX_FILE
fi
# I use this little and simple (:D) command to set the current graphic adapter name in the xfce clock.
#sed -i 's/property name="digital-format" type="string" value=".*"/property name="digital-format" type="string" value="\<span color=\"#00FF00\"\>INTEL\<\/span\> %a, %d %b %Y %H:%M"/g' /home/ksatta/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml
# X didn't start every time, seems to work now with this sleep
sleep 1
fi
echo "EXITING.."
exit 05. Put NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-310.51.run in /root/ (from nvidia.com) (No need for exec perms, but for security chown root:root etc..).
6. Now when you choose a kernel with efifb in grub, nvidia is used. When you choose a kernel without efifb, intel is used.