Switchable Graphics (laptop) with ubuntu 10.10

haz_pro · 2 Mar 2011 at 01:44

Hey everyone,

This is my first time using linux (dual boot with windows 7) and i am having issues with the graphics options.

In bios i have it set to switchable as it works fine with windows 7.

However in ubuntu switching doesnt work. I read into something called VGAswitcheroo, but i couldnt get it to work.

It seems the graphics is constantly in use so i will only get about 2 hours battery (5+ in windows), and the laptop is also getting very hot!

Can i make it so ubuntu only uses the bintegrated intel graphics?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Harry

blueacid · 3 Mar 2011 at 00:09

What laptop do you have? Is it one of the Acer ones that has both an integrated Intel graphics card and also a separate ATI/nVidia card which can be enabled for better graphics performance at the expense of battery life

haz_pro · 3 Mar 2011 at 00:18

blueacid said:
What laptop do you have? Is it one of the Acer ones that has both an integrated Intel graphics card and also a separate ATI/nVidia card which can be enabled for better graphics performance at the expense of battery life

Hello,

Yes you are correct. It is a Acer 8371g with intergrated Intel graphics and a radion mobility HD4300 discrete i believe!

Any ideas? Laptop gets SERIOUSLY hot running ubuntu just using chrome, way hotter then windows 7 even if i am using discrete plating Counter strike source.

blueacid · 3 Mar 2011 at 00:21

haz_pro said:
Hello,

Yes you are correct. It is a Acer 8371g with intergrated Intel graphics and a radion mobility HD4300 discrete i believe!

Any ideas? Laptop gets SERIOUSLY hot running ubuntu just using chrome, way hotter then windows 7 even if i am using discrete plating Counter strike source.

Have you got one of the modded BIOS's installed? I think with those you can force it to a particular chip; see if you get any success there?

After that I'm not too sure

MasterPlan1 · 3 Mar 2011 at 12:20

http://asusm51ta-with-linux.blogspot.com/ - if you get it working, let me know, as soon as you install the restricted drivers within Linux it goes away... So yeah, not sure about how to deal with it, or if the native Ubuntu ATI drivers can do 3D (as in wine etc)

haz_pro · 3 Mar 2011 at 12:51

blueacid said:
Have you got one of the modded BIOS's installed? I think with those you can force it to a particular chip; see if you get any success there?

After that I'm not too sure

Yeah i have, and can use this option. How ever i was hoping there would be a way i could keep it as switchable in bios and just sort in ubuntu as it seems hassle (although only a little) to have to change to discrete if i want to play a game on windows 7.

Thanks for your opinion though!

MasterPlan1 said:
http://asusm51ta-with-linux.blogspot.com/ - if you get it working, let me know, as soon as you install the restricted drivers within Linux it goes away... So yeah, not sure about how to deal with it, or if the native Ubuntu ATI drivers can do 3D (as in wine etc)

Tried this to no avail

MasterPlan1 · 3 Mar 2011 at 13:00

I think it works if you don't have the restricted drivers installed.

haz_pro · 3 Mar 2011 at 16:55

MasterPlan1 said:
I think it works if you don't have the restricted drivers installed.

The restricted drivers are the ones made by the company, in this example ati?

If so i did install them, but then removed them before trying that. (assuming i uninstalled them properly, as now when i look in the additional driver option in the system menu, nothing is displayed :S when before it showed the GPU drive, even though it was installed!)

brendan · 4 Mar 2011 at 12:57

haz_pro said:
The restricted drivers are the ones made by the company, in this example ati?

Yes and no. Restricted driver in ubuntu just means non opensource drivers that will 'taint' the kernel.

haz_pro said:
If so i did install them, but then removed them before trying that. (assuming i uninstalled them properly, as now when i look in the additional driver option in the system menu, nothing is displayed :S when before it showed the GPU drive, even though it was installed!)

What are you trying to do in linux anyways? Do you ever need the 3D performance of the more powerfull card? Either way I would try the FOSS driver which is what ubuntu uses by default, in 10.10 it should be fairly decent, enough to enjoy simple openGL stuff.

haz_pro · 6 Mar 2011 at 13:29

brendan said:
Yes and no. Restricted driver in ubuntu just means non opensource drivers that will 'taint' the kernel.

What are you trying to do in linux anyways? Do you ever need the 3D performance of the more powerfull card? Either way I would try the FOSS driver which is what ubuntu uses by default, in 10.10 it should be fairly decent, enough to enjoy simple openGL stuff.

Ah i see.

I would like the to just use the integrated card all the time. I have no need to use the ATI card whilst in ubuntu.

I was hoping for a way to disable the ATI card whilst in ubuntu (rather than using bios.)

Ill have a look for this "FOSS" driver, thanks!

Minto · 6 Mar 2011 at 19:36

can you just blacklist the ati modules and let it load the drivers for the internal card?

haz_pro · 6 Mar 2011 at 20:22

Minto said:
can you just blacklist the ati modules and let it load the drivers for the internal card?

Im not sure if im being honest.

I am very new to linux so not sure how i would do this? Would this stop power from going to the ATI card, or just stop it from being used?

Sorry for being such a linux noob!

brendan · 6 Mar 2011 at 23:13

haz_pro said:
Im not sure if im being honest.

I am very new to linux so not sure how i would do this? Would this stop power from going to the ATI card, or just stop it from being used?

Sorry for being such a linux noob!

I'm not sure if blacklisting the driver is going to be enough to stop CPU usage but you can try, usually it's something like /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist or similar.

Although in your case since you have two ATI cards i'm not sure how that's going to work out... I'd really have a good look at the vga_switcheroo module and switch to the onboard graphics on boot. Then just use the default driver that comes with ubuntu (ie don't install the ATI closed source "restricted" driver - the open source one works great even for basic 3D - ie usually enough to get compiz working nicely and 2D rendering is usually better!)

haz_pro · 7 Mar 2011 at 22:27

brendan said:
I'm not sure if blacklisting the driver is going to be enough to stop CPU usage but you can try, usually it's something like /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist or similar.

Although in your case since you have two ATI cards i'm not sure how that's going to work out... I'd really have a good look at the vga_switcheroo module and switch to the onboard graphics on boot. Then just use the default driver that comes with ubuntu (ie don't install the ATI closed source "restricted" driver - the open source one works great even for basic 3D - ie usually enough to get compiz working nicely and 2D rendering is usually better!)

Ill have a look more into switcheroo, although i couldnt get it to work before, said i didnt have the rights to use it or something

brendan · 8 Mar 2011 at 10:19

you probably need to be root to use it, or was it another problem?

haz_pro · 10 Mar 2011 at 14:33

brendan said:
you probably need to be root to use it, or was it another problem?

I think it was something to do with permissions!

Managed to get: http://asusm51ta-with-linux.blogspot.com/ to work, laptop still getting hot compared to when running windows 7 though.

brendan · 10 Mar 2011 at 16:18

haz_pro said:
I think it was something to do with permissions!

Managed to get: http://asusm51ta-with-linux.blogspot.com/ to work, laptop still getting hot compared to when running windows 7 though.

make sure you enable powersaving in the radeon driver as by default it's disabled on some cards. See this on the arch linux wiki for info.

haz_pro · 10 Mar 2011 at 16:39

brendan said:
make sure you enable powersaving in the radeon driver as by default it's disabled on some cards. See this on the arch linux wiki for info.

Thanks fella, just had a quick look, looks complicated but there is no harm in trying!

How do i know if my install has "KMS", its ubuntu 10.10?

brendan · 10 Mar 2011 at 17:01

haz_pro said:
How do i know if my install has "KMS", its ubuntu 10.10?

Do :

Code:

sudo cat /sys/module/radeon/parameters/modeset

Another way to check it's working is to see how fast you can swtich from a tty to X and back (Ctrl+Alt+F1 and back to Ctrl+Alt+F7). It should be near instant. On my older radeon driver + kernel (2.6.32), i get huge tearing but it's pretty much instant.

haz_pro · 10 Mar 2011 at 21:07

brendan said:
Do :

Code:

sudo cat /sys/module/radeon/parameters/modeset

Another way to check it's working is to see how fast you can swtich from a tty to X and back (Ctrl+Alt+F1 and back to Ctrl+Alt+F7). It should be near instant. On my older radeon driver + kernel (2.6.32), i get huge tearing but it's pretty much instant.

Thanks,

"sudo cat /sys/module/radeon/parameters/modeset" returns "1", and the switch from tty to X and back is instant.

thanks