Bumblebee and FC18 - a horror show

Preface

I’ve seen numerous posts about how to get bumlebee, optirun and nvidia to run on Fedora Core 18, the only problem was that all of them were using the open source (and somewhat slow) nouveau driver.

I wanted to use the official Nvidia binary driver which is heaps faster.

My configuration is a Lenovo T430s with a NVS 5200M.

Following is a tick list of things to do to get it running (at least on my configuration with FC18 x86_64).

Installing the Nvidia driver

The purpose of this paragraph is to show you how to install the Nvidia driver without overwriting your current OpenGL libraries. Simply download the installer and run:

yum install libbsd-devel dkms
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-XXX.XX.run --x-module-path=/usr/lib64/xorg/nvidia --opengl-libdir=lib64/nvidia --compat32-libdir=lib/nvidia --utility-libdir=lib64/nvidia --no-x-check --disable-nouveau --no-recursion

Even though we ask it to disable nouveau, it still wouldn’t.

This method will not ruin all the good stuff in /usr/lib and /usr/lib64.

Disabling nouveau

Disabling nouveau is rather simple, we need to blacklist it and remove it from initrd:

echo "blacklist nouveau" > /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf 
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r) --omit-drivers nouveau

Good on us. You may either reboot now to verify that nouveau is out of the house, or manually rmmod it:

rmmod nouveau

Bumblebee and all the rest

Install VirtualGL:

yum --enablerepo=updates-testing install VirtualGL

Remove some rubbish xorg files:

rm -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Download bbswtich and install with dkms:

cd /tmp && wget https://github.com/downloads/Bumblebee-Project/bbswitch/bbswitch-0.5.tar.gz 
tar -xf bbswitch-0.5.tar.gz
cp -av bbswitch-0.5 /usr/src
ln -s /usr/src/bbswitch-0.5/dkms/dkms.conf /usr/src/bbswitch-0.5/dkms.conf
dkms add -m bbswitch -v 0.5
dkms build -m bbswitch -v 0.5
dkms install -m bbswitch -v 0.5

Download bumblebee and install:

cd /tmp && wget https://github.com/downloads/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/bumblebee-3.0.1.tar.gz
tar -xf bumblebee-3.0.1.tar.gz
cd bumblebee-3.0.1
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc 
make && make install 
cp scripts/systemd/bumblebeed.service /lib/systemd/system/
sed -i -e 's#ExecStart=.*#ExecStart=/usr/sbin/bumblebeed --config /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf#g' /lib/systemd/system/bumblebeed.service
chkconfig bumblebeed on

Bumblebee configuration is at /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf, edit it to have this:

[bumblebeed]
VirtualDisplay=:8
KeepUnusedXServer=false
ServerGroup=bumblebee
TurnCardOffAtExit=false
NoEcoModeOverride=false
Driver=nvidia

[optirun]
VGLTransport=proxy
AllowFallbackToIGC=false
[driver-nvidia]
KernelDriver=nvidia
Module=nvidia
PMMethod=bbswitch
LibraryPath=/usr/lib64/nvidia:/usr/lib/nvidia:/usr/lib64/xorg/nvidia
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib64/xorg/nvidia/extensions,/usr/lib64/xorg/nvidia/drivers,/usr/lib64/xorg/modules
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia

The default /etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia which comes with bumblebee is ok, but in case you want to make sure, here is mine:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "Layout0"
    Option "AutoAddDevices" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Device1"
    Driver "nvidia"
    VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
    Option "NoLogo" "true"
    Option "UseEDID" "false"
    Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP"
EndSection

Add yourself to bumblebee group:

groupadd bumblebee
usermod -a -G bumblebee YOUR_USERNAME

Restart bumblebeed:

systemctl restart bumblebeed.service

Testing

To run with your onboard graphics card:

glxspheres

Running with nvidia discrete graphics:

optirun glxspheres

Useful links

Inspiration from:

http://duxyng.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/finally-working-nvidia-optimus-on-fedora/

Download links:

https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/downloads

https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bbswitch/downloads

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

If it works for you, please let me know!!
And if it doesn’t, perhaps I could help.

Tags: bbswitch, bumblebee, bumblebeed, fc18, fedora, fedora core 18, glxinfo, lenovo, nouveau, nvidia, optimus, optirun, t430s