Xorg on hybrid graphic (optimus) laptop

mallniya · Jan 1, 2016

Hey forum,

after a quite a research I decide to refer to community cause of lack of information. The case is pretty simple, I have a Lenovo U430p with Nvidia 730M and integrated Intel graphics and FBSD 10.2 Release. I'm trying to run startx and if there is no xorg.conf preset, X server starts. If I try to create simple conf like this:

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver     "nvidia"
    BusID    "PCI:9:0:0"
EndSection

/var/log/Xorg.0.log yields this in the end (retyped from photo of the screen):

Code:

...
Loading extension GLX
ACPI Warninig: \_SB_.PCI0.RP05.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20150515/nsarguments-97)
(repeated about 8 times)
Loading extension NV-GLX
...

and tty(1) from which startx invoked just hangs with few info messages.

I picked BusID accordingly to nvidia-xconfig -lv.

Sorry for lack of concrete examples -- I cannot provide them by means except for improvised "screenshots" -- photos of a monitor by phone (If necessary -- will be attached). And I wonder if there is a way to capture this information from x-less ~~FBSD~~FreeBSD and provide it here (I have dualboot with Windows10).

x11/nvidia-driver-340 installed. Option to disable integrate graphic in BIOS is absent.

Search queries of mentioned log message gives practically nothing. I'm confused and hope for a little help.

wblock@ · Jan 1, 2016

As far as I know, the Optimus systems do not have discrete Nvidia graphics, just an Nvidia GPU that uses the video memory of the Intel GPU. So you can use the Intel GPU alone for power savings, or Intel + Nvidia GPU for faster rendering if the software supports it, but not Nvidia alone.

mallniya · Jan 1, 2016

Same information here, don't need to use Nvidia chip alone, just want to run X server with it.

Using instruction from https://wiki.freebsd.org/OptimusVideoSupport didn't make any progress, it yields "No screen found" or something like this.

Maybe the fact my laptop's i5-4200 with Haswell graphic chip doesn't supported (according to https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics)? Can it be related, can this block me from using Nvidia chip?

wblock@ · Jan 2, 2016

mallniya said:
Same information here, don't need to use Nvidia chip alone, just want to run X server with it.

But that will not work. Normally, it would be done the other way: ignore the Nvidia chip, and add an entry only for the Intel driver.

However, the Haswell graphics are not supported yet. So use the vesa driver. BusID should either be left out or correspond with the Intel graphics.

mallniya · Jan 2, 2016

That's unfortunate: have a discrete chip and unable to get use of it. Will wait to FBSD graphics updates. Thanks for a help, case closed.

tingo · Jan 2, 2016

FWIW, I had success with x11-drivers/xf86-video-scfb on a laptop with Broadwell-U graphics (Intel HD Graphics 5500). Not sure it would work on Haswell, but it is worth a try.

tobik@ · Jan 2, 2016

tingo said:
Not sure it would work on Haswell, but it is worth a try.

It will, just make sure to boot with UEFI so you get a usable framebuffer (efifb) set to your display's native resolution.

mallniya · Jan 20, 2016

tingo said:
Not sure it would work on Haswell, but it is worth a try.

Thanks for the information and sorry for a delay, will try to give it a shot.

tobik said:
It will, just make sure to boot with UEFI so you get a usable framebuffer (efifb) set to your display's native resolution.

Is it a chance, that simple BIOS/MBR installation (as I unfortunately have at the moment) will work with x11-drivers/xf86-video-scfb?