Re: [gentoo-user] Nvidia and optimus

[J. Roeleveld]

On Wednesday, December 17, 2014 07:16:54 AM Erik Mackdanz wrote:
> "J. Roeleveld" <joost@××××××××.org> writes:
> > On Tuesday, December 16, 2014 05:46:30 PM Erik Mackdanz wrote:
> >> Heiko Baums <lists@××××××××××××.de> writes:
> >> > I don't know if, but I don't think that, it will work with
> >> > x11-drivers/xf86-video-nouveau.
> >>
> >> I used bumblebee for quite a while.  It worked okay, but every upgrade I
> >> would have to fiddle with it again.
> >>
> >> I switched to the Nouveau driver and I'm very glad I did.  "Conventional
> >> wisdom" says Nouveau quality is lower than Nvidia, but I found it worked
> >> better on some things (Second Life).
> >>
> >> As someone else pointed out, with Nouveau the GPU remains on all the
> >> time consuming power.  This is the downside.
> >>
> >> If ease-of-use and/or open licensing are more important to you than top
> >> rendering quality and power consumption, consider using Nouveau.
> >
> > I've been using bumblebee for over a year now. (First laptop with Optimus)
> > and not had any issues. It always works as advertised.
> >
> > What issues did you experience?
>
> I remember more than once changing bumblebee.conf during an upgrade,
> when the service failed to start.  This is over two years ago now, so I
> don't remember any more than that.

A lot can happen in 2 years. (For instance a fork and complete re-write of the 
codebase)

> You could tell me that bumblebee is now stable and rock-solid, but I
> still wouldn't switch from Nouveau.  I've had a good experience, and
> open source matters to me.

Bumblebee also seems to support Nouveau.

> On top of that, this laptop has only a year or so left before I replace
> it, and I know now to avoid Optimus entirely in the future.

That is your choice, I like the idea behind it and have no issues with the way 
it currently works.

--
Joost