Arch Linux

mystyfly

Member

Registered: 2013-03-25

Posts: 30

Installing graphics drivers on Thinkpad T430s

First off, pleasy excuse me if I posted this in the wrong thread.

I have been struggling with the graphic drivers on my Thinkpad T430s for quite some time now. $ lspci -vnn | grep '\''[030[02]\]' yields

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
01:00.0 3D controller [0302]: NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:1140] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

Since I still have my Windows partition, the Lenovo system utility shows that I am using a "NVS 5200M" card from Nvidia.

I've installed xf86-video-intel (version 2.21.6-1), intel-dri (9.1.1-1) and mesa (9.1.1-1) for my primary intel card. It appears that this card is using the mesa driver because when I run $ glxspheres I get "OpenGl Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile".

However, when watching movies or sometimes even when scrolling in the browser I experience tearing so I wanted to install a driver for my nvidia card. There are the proprietary nvidia drivers as well as the open source nouveau drivers and I've read that the nouveau drivers are slower than the proprietary ones. I don't really care since I don't plan on gaming on that laptop.

I've tried to install both drivers. Several times. With different guides. However I never reached any sort of working state. With the nvidia drivers I never noticed any difference but running $ nvidia-xconfig would break the system so I'd have to uninstall the nvidia drivers and restore the original xorg.conf file in order to be able to start another X session. So I focused my attention on nouveau. However I can't seem to get it to work either.

By installing bumblebee (and adding my user to the group and starting the daemon) I get the option to run commands with optirun. Doesn't work though, running $ optirun -vv -debug glxspheres yields

[ 1731.965938] [DEBUG]Reading file: /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf
[ 1731.966486] [INFO]Configured driver: driver-nouveau
[ 1731.966716] [DEBUG]optirun version 3.2.1 starting...
[ 1731.966726] [DEBUG]Active configuration:
[ 1731.966729] [DEBUG] bumblebeed config file: /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf
[ 1731.966732] [DEBUG] X display: ebug
[ 1731.966735] [DEBUG] LD_LIBRARY_PATH: 
[ 1731.966737] [DEBUG] Socket path: /var/run/bumblebee.socket
[ 1731.966739] [DEBUG] Accel/display bridge: auto
[ 1731.966742] [DEBUG] VGL Compression: proxy
[ 1731.966744] [DEBUG] VGLrun extra options: 
[ 1731.966746] [DEBUG] Primus LD Path: /usr/lib/primus:/usr/lib32/primus
[ 1731.966765] [DEBUG]Using auto-detected bridge virtualgl
[ 1731.972734] [INFO]Response: No - error: [XORG] (EE) No devices detected.

[ 1731.972747] [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: [XORG] (EE) No devices detected.

[ 1731.972753] [DEBUG]Socket closed.
[ 1731.972765] [ERROR]Aborting because fallback start is disabled.
[ 1731.972770] [DEBUG]Killing all remaining processes.

So apparently it can't detect my secondary (nvidia) card.
This is how my /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf looks:

# 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=driver-nouveau
# 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

I've found a blog post (note the encouraging title!) which seems to explain how do it properly, however my few week's experience with linux is limited to arch and I can't translate those instructions for Fedora Core to arch or even tell whether that might work. Maybe that would help though.

I'd be very greatful for any sort of help getting my graphics drivers running Thanks in advance!