[SOLVED] Bumblebee: primusrun not working & possible malfunction

DVNO · 2014-08-12 06:54:18

Okay, so, I'm running on a laptop with a GeForce 750M along with an Integrated 4thGen-compatible Intel HD VGA.
lspci | grep -e VGA -e 3D outputs the following:

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ lspci | grep -e VGA -e 3D
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] (rev a1)

I've set up Bumblebee with Intel and Nvidia proprietary drivers, precisely according to the Wiki Pages.
optirun works and can be verified through comparison, when running glxgears:

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh.  The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
304 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.622 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.933 FPS
299 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.751 FPS
296 frames in 5.2 seconds = 56.993 FPS

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ optirun glxgears
9799 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1959.776 FPS
9961 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1992.005 FPS
9950 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1989.903 FPS
9846 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1969.100 FPS

Now, here's the thing: When I originally installed bumblebee I also installed primus and lib32-primus, but I can't get primusrun to work, I get a bizarre output:

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ primusrun glxgears
primus: fatal: Bumblebee daemon reported: error: [XORG] (EE) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

I even specified the driver in my /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf:

# Configuration file for Bumblebee. Values should **not** be put between quotes

## Server options. Any change made in this section will need a server restart
# to take effect.
[bumblebeed]
# The secondary Xorg server DISPLAY number
VirtualDisplay=:8
# Should the unused Xorg server be kept running? Set this to true if waiting
# for X to be ready is too long and don't need power management at all.
KeepUnusedXServer=false
# The name of the Bumbleblee server group name (GID name)
ServerGroup=bumblebee
# Card power state at exit. Set to false if the card shoud be ON when Bumblebee
# server exits.
TurnCardOffAtExit=false
# The default behavior of '-f' option on optirun. If set to "true", '-f' will
# be ignored.
NoEcoModeOverride=false
# The Driver used by Bumblebee server. If this value is not set (or empty),
# auto-detection is performed. The available drivers are nvidia and nouveau
# (See also the driver-specific sections below)
Driver=nvidia
# Directory with a dummy config file to pass as a -configdir to secondary X
XorgConfDir=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.d

## Client options. Will take effect on the next optirun executed.
[optirun]
# Acceleration/ rendering bridge, possible values are auto, virtualgl and
# primus.
Bridge=auto
# The method used for VirtualGL to transport frames between X servers.
# Possible values are proxy, jpeg, rgb, xv and yuv.
VGLTransport=proxy
# List of paths which are searched for the primus libGL.so.1 when using
# the primus bridge
PrimusLibraryPath=/usr/lib/primus:/usr/lib32/primus
# Should the program run under optirun even if Bumblebee server or nvidia card
# is not available?
AllowFallbackToIGC=false


# Driver-specific settings are grouped under [driver-NAME]. The sections are
# parsed if the Driver setting in [bumblebeed] is set to NAME (or if auto-
# detection resolves to NAME).
# PMMethod: method to use for saving power by disabling the nvidia card, valid
# values are: auto - automatically detect which PM method to use
#         bbswitch - new in BB 3, recommended if available
#       switcheroo - vga_switcheroo method, use at your own risk
#             none - disable PM completely
# https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Comparison-of-PM-methods

## Section with nvidia driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nvidia
[driver-nvidia]
# Module name to load, defaults to Driver if empty or unset
KernelDriver=nvidia
PMMethod=auto
# colon-separated path to the nvidia libraries
LibraryPath=/usr/lib/nvidia:/usr/lib32/nvidia
# comma-separated path of the directory containing nvidia_drv.so and the
# default Xorg modules path
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia/xorg/,/usr/lib/xorg/modules
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia

## Section with nouveau driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nouveau
[driver-nouveau]
KernelDriver=nouveau
PMMethod=auto
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nouveau

Then, after some retries, I found out that this happens by chance either with optirun or primusrun. When I run the command, either it will work within 1-2 seconds, or it will halt for 3-4 seconds and fail, outputting that vague error. Also, when primusrun does work, the framerate output is exactly the same as if I was using my Integrated VGA.

For means of diagnosing, if any other file is necessary, just ask and I'll provide it promptly. Any help would be much appreciated :).

PS: I have the nouveau driver blacklisted in /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau_blacklist.conf

Last edited by DVNO (2014-08-12 16:23:25)

DVNO · 2014-08-12 07:33:07

Okay so apparently it's a bbswitch Issue... cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch changes always when I try to load the module, meaning it will keep failing and working successively. I just need to find a way to keep the device always on...

Edit: So it's not bbswitch related, since manually changing the card state through it doesn't fix the issue...This is what is happening, precisely... Unfortunately I don't use grub, so yeah... I'm kind of stuck

Basically, what I'm getting is this:

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ optirun glxgears
[ 2969.033108] [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: [XORG] (EE) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

[ 2969.033217] [ERROR]Aborting because fallback start is disabled.

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ optirun glxgears
>> WORKS !

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ optirun glxgears
[ 2969.033108] [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: [XORG] (EE) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

[ 2969.033217] [ERROR]Aborting because fallback start is disabled.

[danilo@dandelion ~]$ optirun glxgears
>> WORKS !

...And so on...

Last edited by DVNO (2014-08-12 09:21:33)

mrunion · 2014-08-12 15:03:34

You don't have to have GRUB to add the line:

rcutree.rcu_idle_gp_delay=1

You should be able to add it to your Kernel boot line no matter what boot loader is used.

DVNO · 2014-08-12 15:51:42

Yeah I actually fixed this a while ago, but I just realized how stupid I was being; I guess I was so desperate to find the solution that I didn't even stop to focus for a moment...

I use gummiboot to handle my GUID Partitioning Table with ease, I appended that specific string to the options line in /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf, optirun/primusrun now seems to run properly, and cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch now shows DGP as OFF always, which does make sense...

I did consider using NVidia only but I guess It would pure overkill, since I don't actually use the DGP too often...

Anyways, thank you for the reply, marking this as "~solved" now....

Arch Linux

#1 2014-08-12 06:54:18

[SOLVED] Bumblebee: primusrun not working & possible malfunction

#2 2014-08-12 07:33:07

Re: [SOLVED] Bumblebee: primusrun not working & possible malfunction

#3 2014-08-12 15:03:34

Re: [SOLVED] Bumblebee: primusrun not working & possible malfunction

#4 2014-08-12 15:51:42

Re: [SOLVED] Bumblebee: primusrun not working & possible malfunction

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