New laptop with two VGA

[pider]

Bought a new laptop last week : Multicom Kunshan W155 Design Collection, without any OS. Installed Kubuntu 11.10 and moust of the stuff worked well except I had to install update with this command :"sudo apt-get upgrade -y". It did crash if I used Muon.
Here are the specs for the laptop (in Norwegian, but I hope you can understand):

15.6" Wide skjerm Full HD LED 1920x1080 - mattskjerm
GeForce GT 555 skjermkort med 2GB DDR3 minne, nVidia PhysX og CUDA teknologi
nVidia Optimus teknologi - skjermkortet veksler mellom Intel HD Graphics 3000 og GeForce GT 555M etter behov
Nyeste Intel Core™ i5 eller i7 prosessor - valgfri størrelse
Intel HM65 Express chipset
DDR3 1333MHz SO-DIMM RAM - valgfri størrelse
Bluetooth
802.11 b/g/n trådløst nettverkskort Intel Centrino 6230
10/100/1000Mpbs nettverkskort
DVD Super Multi brenner eller Blu-Ray spiller
Touchpad med scroll funksjon
Webkamera 2.0 Megapiksler
Intel HD-Audio
Stereo høyttalere innebygget
Innebygget mikrofon
1 x HDMI utgang
1 x VGA utgang
1 x SPDIF utgang
2 x USB 2.0 kontakter
2 x USB 3.0 kontakter
1 x eSATA kontakt
1 x Mikrofoninngang
1 x Hodetelefonutgang
9-i-1 minnekortleser (MMC, RS MMC, MS, MS Pro, MS Duo, SD, Mini-SD, SDHC, SDXC)
6 Cellers batteri Smart Lithium Ion, 5600mAh
Kensington låsespor
Størrelse 374 x 250 x 25~40.2mm (BxDxH)
Vekt: 2.6 kg med batteri

I think it is using the "Intel HD Graphics 3000" because there are no nVidia driver installed. I would like tom use the "GeForce GT 555M "
How do I fix this?

[Snowhog]

As to the GPU to be used, you 'may' need to check the BIOS settings. Usually, when there are two video cards/chips in the PC, one is set to be used 'by default'. Likely, in this case, it's the Intel HD Graphics 30000. So, in the BIOS, see if it can be disabled, which "should" then allow the GeForce GT 555 to be utilized. Even then, you might have to check to see if the Additional Drivers then sees it and makes it available for activation.

[SteveRiley]

The Bumblebee Project is actively working on a software stack to enable easier switching between CPU-integrated and nVidia discrete graphics. You can install from a PPA; no compiling required. Their Launchpad project page contains some useful information, as does the Ubuntu wiki.

[pider]

I have checked the BIOS settings, but I cannnot find a option for turning off the Intel card.

[pider]

Maybe I schould install CUDA : http://http://samiux.blogspot.com/20...on-ubuntu.html
Anyone have experience with this?

[SteveRiley]

More information on CUDA. Note that this won't help you get your nVidia hardware running -- it has to be functioning properly with the correct drivers first. If your BIOS/UEFI lacks the functionality to switch video hardware, then you'll need to explore what Bumblebee can help you do to get Optimus working correctly.

[pider]

Installed Bumblebee, success!





Tanks!

[SteveRiley]

Nice!

[SteveRiley]

I hope you will find a way to start up on the nVidia card as that's on my Thinkpad with Optimus technology the only way to enable an external monitor.

Which ThinkPad do you have?

[SteveRiley]

I have a W520, Bumblebee works fine but the VGA and HDMI ports are only available when starting up in the 'Descrete Video' mode.

I have a T520, which is probably similar to your W520. I've disabled the nVidia graphics in the UEFI and use only the Intel HD 3000. It can drive the analog VGA port, but not the digital DisplayPort.

[SteveRiley]

So you don't actually have an old-style BIOS anymore. Your ThinkPad includes a full UEFI 2.0 implementation. UEFI incorporates a BIOS compatibility mode, but that doesn't mean UEFI steps out of the way. Instead, this mode allows older operating systems to boot -- that is, operating systems whose bootloaders don't know how to make sense of the UEFI system partition.

Alas, in many instances -- Lenovo included -- the documentation and the text on the screen still use the term "BIOS," especially when referring to the settings screen in which you can configure things like boot order, video chips, and so on. Matter of fact, try this on your laptop:

sudo efibootmgr -v

What's the output?

[SteveRiley]

Sheesh, that is such sloppy language in the Lenovo readme. There is no such thing as a "UEFI BIOS." A computer can have one or the other, but not both. If a computer has a BIOS, that's all it has. If a computer has a UEFI, it will have either a BIOS compatibility mode (current versions) or a compatibility service module (older versions).

The lack of efibootmgr on your PC hints that your copy of Kubuntu installed in BIOS mode. But let's check a couple things. What's the output of

ll /boot
dpkg --list | grep -i grub

[jwebster8]

I'm going to chime in here because a) I don't think the problem was entirely solved. and b) I can help a bit I believe.

This may be specific to Lenovo laptops, I dunno...Since the problem is caused by two graphics cards, theres probably a similar process for other brands.

I have a lenovo w520 and it has the two graphics cards (it took me a while to realize this). An onboard intel and a nvidia quadro 2000m. I need the nvidia drivers for opengl and for cuda programming, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get the nvidia drivers to load at boot.

If you've tried everything and still can't get nvidia to work, try this...
At startup, go into the BIOS (for me, i press the ThinkVantage Button). Go to the Display settings. For the setting "Graphics Device:" choose "Discrete Grap". (Note that the option "NVidia Optimus" should be selected only if you're running Windows 7!)

Set the OS Detection to Disabled.

when you reboot, the intel card will be disabled and you should have a lot less problems installing nvidia drivers.

cheers

[SteveRiley]

Since grub-pc is installed, you're running in BIOS compatibility mode. To work in UEFI mode, GRUB has to install grub-efi-amd64. You'd also have an efi subdirectory in /boot.

I'm curious...how did you install Kubuntu on your W520?

But Google Earth will only run in either optirun or Descrete mode, I get a missing lib error trying to run it on the Intel card.

Does the error message indicate which file?

[SteveRiley]

I'll illustrate the boot process of my T520. Apologies in advance for the blurry cell-phone images.

Initial boot. Notice the incorrect usage of the word "BIOS" in the prompt to press F1. It should say "UEFI," because that's what this computer has.



The first page of the setup. Again, note the incorrect term: "UEFI BIOS." But at least we know this is a UEFI system.



The startup page, with the boot compatibility menu shown. Controls which kind of operating system the UEFI will attempt to load.



Do you see the same options as I?