archlinux
Nvidia Optimus option when choosing drivers
Copy pasted from discord
my suggestion is: add optimus option after choosing desktop environment (in desktop profile) currently we have:
all open source nvidia nvidia optimus (For integrated and discrete graphics, like Nvidia + Intel) intel amd ATI vmware/vbox ...
So my suggestion is adding nvidia optimus to that list
all open source nvidia nvidia optimus (For integrated and discrete graphics, like Nvidia + Intel) intel amd ATI vmware/vbox ...
(I have nvidia + intel graphics machine so thats why i need that, using only 1 graphics is not my way, because i want to use nvidia only for games, not all time)
I feel this is something that could be configured post installation, or are there steps that's needed during installation?
I think the best approach would be to allow users to select 2 profiles if needed. This would mostly just free up post installation stuff.
👋 howdy
TLDR: just use all open-source since Nvidia is now available to all
IMO setting up dual GPUs should be up to user post-install due to sheer complexity and possibilities.
Possible GPU combinations include but aren't limited to:
| built-in | external |
|---|---|
| AMD | AMD |
| AMD | Nvidia |
| Intel | AMD |
| Intel | Nvidia |
That's just what we had so far for x86/x64, eventually we might have external Intel GPUs for laptops, as well as whatever happens with ARM devices like latest macbooks.
Behavior-wise you can:
- disable external GPU to reduce power consumption
- have it as hybrid in case you want a more flexible on-demand processing power (which I believe is default in most cases)
- disable internal GPU and have external one handle everything (which is what I did for my AMD+Nvidia laptop)
That's 3 possible ways to handle it for 4 possible combinations of GPUs, which ones do we include? My answer is none since the point of archinstall is to make a simple un-bloated Arch installation, but maybe others disagree. And I'm not even listing possible GPU switching methods since they differ based on GPU combinations (see arch wiki links below).
Main points:
- Yes, you do need drivers for both Intel/Nvidia.
- Yes, archinstall probably should allow for selecting multiple drivers arbitrarily.
- No, you don't need some specific drivers for your hybrid setup, but you might need a patched display manager for it, such as gdm-prime (AUR) for Gnome. The gdm-prime makes use of Canonical's "launch with external GPU" patch which vanilla GDM doesn't do.
Some relevant arch wiki pages: Hybrid graphics Nvidia Optimus Prime
We'll close this, as I agree. The problem is complicated enough that it's better left to the user post-install. At least for the foreseeable future.