Nvidia Optimus mode not possible?

[evo]

Hi!

i read some posts about this and as i understood, it is not possible to
use optimus mode with nvidia and intel card on Qubes OS, is it right?

The thing with Bumblebee and bbswitch, which i don't fully understand,
seems not to work, or do somebody have some new tricks?

[Vít Šesták]

Well, you probably can use Optimus with QubesOS, except it is pretty useless, because QubesOS renders everything in AppVMs on CPU. GPU is used:

a. In dom0, where integrated GPU is usually enough.
b. In HVMs if you use GPU passthrough. Note that you cannot start multiple VMs with the same VM assigned. (Not sure how hard/easy is it to configure GPU passthrough. It is hard not supported on my old laptop, so I have no experience with this.)

The only thing I want from Nvidia is not to consume power (and not to produce heat), which is what bbswitch is useful for.

Well, if you have an output wired to Nvidia GPU, Optimus could be useful to handle this output. I had a limited luck using intel-virtual-output with opensource Nvidia drivers (added a second screen, but the system was rather unusable then). Maybe I would have more luck with proprietary drivers.

Regards,
Vít Šesták 'v6ak'

[Zrubi]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 03/06/2017 07:48 PM, evo wrote:
> i read some posts about this and as i understood, it is not
> possible to use optimus mode with nvidia and intel card on Qubes
> OS, is it right?

Sadly you are right.
But this is a general limitation on linux, not a Qubes issue.
Moreover nVidia binary drivers still not support Optimus on linux.

> The thing with Bumblebee and bbswitch, which i don't fully
> understand, seems not to work, or do somebody have some new
> tricks?

These are dead projects, mentioning outdated drivers. I would not
bother trying to follow those instructions.


nVidia also blocking GPU passthrough via VGA BIOS (expect Quadro
cards) so we can't even hope about passing the nVidia VGA to a VM, and
use it there natively.

Currently the only use case where the binary drivers may be useful if
you have a single nVidia VGA and want to use it under Qubes -
accepting the risks for a better battery life. Or if that single card
is a new (1000 series) one, because that is not even supported by the
open source drivers.


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Zrubi
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[evo]

On 03/07/2017 11:00 AM, Zrubi wrote:
> On 03/06/2017 07:48 PM, evo wrote:
>> i read some posts about this and as i understood, it is not
>> possible to use optimus mode with nvidia and intel card on Qubes
>> OS, is it right?
>
> Sadly you are right.
> But this is a general limitation on linux, not a Qubes issue.
> Moreover nVidia binary drivers still not support Optimus on linux.
>
>
>> The thing with Bumblebee and bbswitch, which i don't fully
>> understand, seems not to work, or do somebody have some new
>> tricks?
>
> These are dead projects, mentioning outdated drivers. I would not
> bother trying to follow those instructions.
>
>
> nVidia also blocking GPU passthrough via VGA BIOS (expect Quadro
> cards) so we can't even hope about passing the nVidia VGA to a VM, and
> use it there natively.
>
> Currently the only use case where the binary drivers may be useful if
> you have a single nVidia VGA and want to use it under Qubes -
> accepting the risks for a better battery life. Or if that single card
> is a new (1000 series) one, because that is not even supported by the
> open source drivers.
>
>
>

oh, ok.. so i thought.. pitty.

i have Quadro K1000M in my notebook, so not very old and not new.

The thing is, if i start in descrete-card mode, i have some strange
grafic boot, but the system runs well. Runs there the Nvidia card, but
with nouveau-driver??

as it seems, yes.

is Nvidia in nouveau-mode then better than the intel card? not really,
isn't it?

[Vít Šesták]

Good point on Bumblebee being dead, I've missed that. It works with my GPU, but my laptop model is from 2011…

Bbswitch seems to be rather simple piece of software that can disable the Nvidia GPU. It might be worth of trying it even with new GPUs. Unless you have an output wired directly to Nvidia card, disabling Nvidia is probably the only thing you need to do with it.

If bbswitch does not support new Nvidia GPUs, it is an unfortunate fact that I should consider when buying a new laptop 😔 Unfortunately, discarding all Nvidia-equipped laptops from my selection seems to discard many laptops. 😔

Regards,
Vít Šesták 'v6ak'