nvidia/nouveau problems

[Per Bothner]

On 04/20/2011 06:33 AM, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> Per Bothner wrote:
>> My preference would be to just use integrated graphics, and
>> completely disable the nvidia graphics.  Unfortunately, there
>> doesn't seem to be a way to do that from the BIOS, at least
>> not the visible BIOS control settings.
>
> There is not an option in the BIOS because laptop manufacturers think
> you're going to use the operating system that was pre-installed. Optimus
> is not supported in any shape or form by nouvaeu or the NVIDIA
> proprietary driver.

I seem to remember find instructions for disabling the nvidia driver,
but now I'm not finding it - so far.

> In other words, you're screwed until someone reverse engineers it or
> NVIDIA supports it. Search for "linux optimus" to find dozens of other
> frustrated users.

I'm hoping someone can reverse engineer at least how to disable nvidia.

I did try hard to get a laptop with just integrated graphics, but they're
very hard to find, especially once you get to mid/upper-end with i7 
quad-core
Sandy Bridge.  Most of them have nvidia/optimus.  A few have ATI, which 
would
of course be my strong preference, but there are very few choices, 
especially
if you want to avoid a glossy screen.

I can certainly live with the current situation, though the constantly-going
fan is an annoyance (along with the reduced battery life), but I'm going 
to try
to see how Fedora under VirtualBox under Windows works.  (I want to have 
that
available anyway, for the rare cases when I need to do something on 
Windows.)
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per at bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/