I’m not an expert. I do a lot of nvidia installs that are non hybrid on desktops and they have installation issues also. The problem is i don’t have the hardware to try things plus i think that not all manufacturers hybrid systems work the same way. I still think with your system that you need to get it working on intel first and then use one of the many methods of switching graphics or set it to use one or the other only. I’m not sure if you checked your Bios to see if one or the other can be turned off. If you are able to turn off the intel and use the nvidia only then try that. Other then that just keep trying to find information from a source that has gotten similar equipment working. I wish i could make it work for you. The last link i gave should help as well as the video posted earlier.
Edit: I’m just happy to see you not give up because that is worthy and how one learns. It’s not always the result we want but the endeavour is worth it.
That is exactly what I am doing right now. In fact, I am searching for"Arch nvidia prime vs bumblebee vs optimus manager vs nvidia-xrun", as I have all those options and don’t know which one to choose. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA_Optimus#Use_switchable_graphics
There is even an additional project not featured in the Arch Wiki:
I really don’t mind if swtching between iGPU and dGPU needs reboot, I just would like to have a reliable system in which nVidia performance is as best as possible and intel performance is as energy saving as possible.
Is optimus-manager the way to go?
That guide is good but i have done it with bypassing installing bumblebee. Not sure that is needed but try it via this guide as it doesn’t hurt anything. You are installing it and then you disable the service but maybe it configures everything properly without any manual intervention or hassle.
I just switched to I3 on KDE and it’s awesome. Log into either one. My advantage is i have an AMD system with RX 590 Graphics card and a Ryzen 7 3800X.
Gentlemen: the day has come!
Short answer: I was never able to run pure Nvidia graphics without Optimus Manager. After installing optimus manager, I managed to make it work. At the bottom of this post I paste the final working Xorg conf file that optimus manager generated for me.
The steps I took were:
Delete all GPU related conf files in both /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d and /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
yay nvidia-lts, because I am using linux-lts kernel (although maybe this step was not needed)
yay optimus-manager
reboot
sudo prime-offload
sudo optimus-manager --switch nvidia
Now I am (at last!) running on my nVidia dGPU. Next time, I will try to get an AMD with open source drivers.
I do have some issues though, I think I will solve tinkering with Arandr, and other issues like no backlight and no tray icons, but I will let you guys rest and bother somebody else (or maybe you again) in another forum post.
In case somebody is interested, here is the working xorg conf file:
EDIT: I want to thank @manuel, @joekamprad, @Mikro and specially @ricklinux for giving their time and effort on solving this issue. I think the lesson learned here is: If you are having trouble running Nvidia driver alone on an hybrid laptop, try doing it with optimus manager. Looking forward to keep in this Endeavour.
