Ubuntu 12.10 Nvidia GT555M Bumblebee

I have laptop with Nvidia GT 555M video card. System Ubuntu 12.10, kernel Linux 3.5.0-17-generic

1. step what i do:

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable 
   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates 
   sudo apt-get update 
   sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia 
   

   restart system

   optirun glxgears
   

   This message give me: Cannot access secondary GPU - error: Could not load GPU driver Aborting because fallback start is disabled.

2. Open sudo gedit /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf and change Driver= to Driver=nvidia and KernelDriver=nvidia-current to KernelDriver=nvidia. Restart the system and run optirun glxgears.

   This message gives me:

    The Bumblebee daemon has not been started yet or the socket path /var/run/bumblebee.socket was incorrect.
    Could not connect to bumblebee daemon - is it running?
   

Anybody have idea?!

Solution 1:

KernelDriver=nvidia-current is correct if you have installed the nvidia-current package, you should not change that on Ubuntu. Since Ubuntu 12.10, you need to install the kernel headers yourself.

So, revert your KernelDriver change (the Driver= one does not matter) and install the kernel headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

This should automatically build the nvidia module. When this is completed, reboot or start the Bumblebee daemon:

sudo start bumblebeed

Then try running optirun glxspheres again.

Solution 2:

There is even a better way to manage Optimus graphic card on Linux: it's called Primus, it depends on Bumblebee. Just follow the instructions right there and we'll get even better results (I have the same graphic card than you, and it's working amazingly well): http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/primus-better-performance-and-less.html However, don't forget to vblank_mode=0 primusrun instead of primusrun alone. You can test glxgears with it. Once it's installed, if you wish, you can still use optirun.

Here's a proof of the above: