Bumblebee 3.0 “Tumblewed” Nvidia Optimus GPU Switching For Linux has been Released – How to Install Bumblebee 3.0 on Ubuntu

Bumblebee 3.0 Nvidia Optimus GPU Switching For Linux has been Released on January 19, 2012. The Bumblebee Project proudly presents version 3.0 of Bumblebee, a project aimed to support NVIDIA Optimus technology under Linux

Actually, Nvidia Optimus GPU switching is officially only supported on Windows 7, but the Team Bumblebee Project also provide for Linux too. Great job Bumblebee Project 

Nvidia Optimus technology is available for notebooks or laptops that are used to increasebattery life by switching OFF dedicated GPU when it’s not necessary and then switch ON again when needed. When a dedicated GPU from integrated graphics chip that is used. Nvidia Optimus

Here it is the release higligth of Bumblebee 3.0 :

• acpi_call has been replaced with bbswitch and vga_switcheroo
• Nouveau support for the Ubuntu PPA package
• Automatic power management which also survives suspend
• Improved error detection and reporting
• Better system integration
• “optirun –status” will now show the current status of Bumblebee and the secondary GPU on your system
• Xorg configuration greatly simplified, provided defaults usually work out of the box.
• Server / client re-written in C which provides increased performance and reliability
• Automatic power management which also survives suspend
• Improved error detection and reporting
• Better system integration
• Switch to Upstart startup mechanism
• You can found Complete changelog of Bumblebee 3.0 here

How to install Bumblebee 3.0 “Tumbleweed” on Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

To install Bumblebee 3.0 “Tumbleweed” on ubuntu 11.10 see follow guide below:

Open terminal and add ppa Bumbleebe ”Tumbleweed”, then install

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install bumblebee 

You may also want to use newer drivers (particularly if having recent hardware), then run this before installing Bumblebee:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-current
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

After installation, allow yourself to use Bumblebee (replace $USER by your username):

sudo usermod -a -G bumblebee $USER

Then, reboot your ubuntu.

To see if it works, run during around 30s:

glxspheres

Then, run it with optirun, and compare:

optirun glxspheres

Be aware that as Bumblebee is using low-level hardware informations, it is impossible to run it in a VM.

If you want to run 32-bit apps in Oneiric, install:

sudo apt-get install virtualgl-libs:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libc6:i386

To report issues, please read http://wiki.Bumblebee-Project.org/Reporting-Issues

To install Bumblebee 3.0 on Arch Linux follow links below:

AUR package: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=49469
Instructions in the ArchWiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bumblebee

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