Marc Chamberlin wrote: [snip]
Thanks Ben for replying, most appreciated! I have to admit that at this point I am seriously confused by what is happening on my laptop. I decided to do a ground zero reinstall of openSuSE 11.3 x64 on my laptop. Reformatted the disk drive and started over. After initial installation I found that my openGL screen savers were working. I looked for evidence of seeing if any nVidia drivers were installed (wanted to know what rev level they were at, and I could not find any. The lsmod command showed no evidence, nor did the Xorg.0.log file. So apparently nVidia drivers are not supplied as part of the ISO download for openSuSE.
1rst caveat - I am no expert, and do not use Intel video. I do believe that to use Nvidia drivers one has to explicitly install them. This is because the nouveau driver ships with the regular install, and is incompatible in that both cannot be used at the same time. When Nvidia drivers are installed, either via repo or the .run file from the Nvidia web site, the nouveau kernel module gets "blacklisted" to prevent it from loading at boot. This is done by a file in /etc/modprobe.d and will contain a line with: 'blacklist nouveau' in it. Indeed, if you try to install using the .run file from the web site while in an init 5 desktop it will stop with an error that it cannot continue because it can't get rid of the running nouveau module and please go to an init 3 to install. To be clear here: we are talking about kernel modules that load at boot; the Xorg drivers are a different and separate thing.
I then added the nVidia repositories (along with Packman and a couple others) then did an update which also added the nVidia drivers to the mix of things that were added to my system. Rebooted, and discovered that the openGL screen savers were no longer working. Again lsmod and Xorg.0.log did not indicate that any nVidia drivers were loaded or being used. Puzzled, I decided to try an experiment and I removed all nVidia drivers, including the open source nouveau driver which YaST tried to install after I had removed the two proprietary nVidia drivers I had gotten from the nVidia repository. Once I had removed all the nVidia drivers, I rebooted, and found the openGL screen savers again working!
When you install Nvidia drivers, along with them come an Nvidia version of the OpenGL libraries. These will only work with the Nvidia kernel module and Xorg driver combination; they will not work with anything else. If they were somehow accidently left behind after a failed attempt at removing Nvidia, you would find that OpenGL would no longer function when switching back to the Intel video.
So apparently my laptop is willing to use the Intel video (which I believe is integrated into the I5 processor) so long as no nVidia drivers are present, and then run the openGL screen savers. There is no way to disable the Intel video controller in the BIOS and I don't find any way to select or deselect using either video controllers via any of the openSuSE/KDE tools. And I certainly do not understand why simply installing the nVidia drivers breaks things. I would think the nVidia controller would be a far better and more desirable controller to use.
In order to utilize the Nvidia drivers you probably need to blacklist the loading of the Intel kernel module. Since I don't use an Intel video chipset you can probably get more precise information from someone who does. I have seen discussions from time to time on various Intel video driver "situations". Many of the Intel VESA Frame Buffer ones are already blacklisted, but this does not include the main kernel module. Find the Intel module with lsmod and blacklist it if you want to use Nvidia. Look for this subject material when researching more precise instructions. What I don't know is how this might play out in a situation where you are unable to disable the Intel video in BIOS. Look for the possibility of being able to "prefer" one over the other, e.g. a "enable xyz chip first". Blacklisting the Intel kernel module from loading at boot is my "best wild guess". :-)
As an aside, Windows7 does use the nVidia controller and automatically disables the Intel controller, if I believe what their hardware info is reporting.... I would like to be able to experiment with both and determine which one is better, and be able to select either...
Earlier generations of laptops that had two video chips did so to offer "the best of both worlds" wrt to power management. The Intel video uses less power so battery will last longer. When on AC mains, and perhaps a better external display, the Nvidia will provide better 3D acceleration at the cost of increased power consumption. At any rate, since I believe these switching schemes aren't really applicable to Linux you will be forced to pick one or the other. Using the Nvidia will chew through battery quickly. At the other end of the equation, I've read various comments here and there that the Intel drivers are still in a fairly horrid state. If the Intel drivers give you what you need you will get longer battery life. If you want to play games where 3D acceleration is a requirement you will want the Nvidia. -Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org