Bumblebee Project for Nvidia Optimus: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ideapad Z360

After being blasted by Linux founder Linus Torvalds in the media, Nvidia responded with a little damage control regarding their lack of support for Linux.  To be fair, Nvidia may not have deserved the harsh words from the Linux developer considering the number of generic Nvidia Linux drivers available on their support website.  However, Nvidia's rebuttal regarding Optimus is somewhat weak - citing the Bumblebee Project for the graphics-switching technology Optimus is a poor example of what they would call support. 

Regardless if the Nvidia Optimus technology has been popular in the laptop market is besides the point.  With all due respect to the great independent developers working on the Bumblebee Project, Nvidia's support for the open source drivers are not only incomplete but inadequate. 

I've tested a few releases of Bumblebee before on my Lenovo Ideapad Z360 which runs the following Optimus-powered graphics chipset: Nvidia N11M-GE2 (supports Optimus) w/512MB, 1G VRAM

I had used the earlier release of Bumblebee on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) with poor results on the Ideapad.  I finally gave up on it and skipped Bumblebee on a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot and decided to tolerate the poor battery life (which maxed out at less than an hour and fifteen minutes), inability to run 3D effects, loss in brightness controls, and the loud fan noise (which is likened to the fan on a desktop).  With the recent release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and finding no improvements to battery life, power management, nor fan control, I gave the updated Bumblebee a shot, hoping for some improvements in battery performance.

Installation takes no more than a few minutes and the good folks at the project provides a three-step process that involves just adding the repositories and downloading the packages.



The good news is that it is definitely worth installing on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for the following reasons:

1. No more loud fan noise - The team did a great job at controlling the whine of the fan due to the Nvidia chipset.

2. An incremental increase in battery life - In a purely informal test, I used a fully-charged Ideapad Z360 as long as I could, doing menial tasks such as running KeepNote, Shutter, and accessing my iPod Touch.  I was also able to watch a full episode of "True Blood" before Ubuntu's battery indicator signaled I needed to plug in to a power source.  Total time: 1:35 

The fan noise solution alone makes Bumblebee worth installing on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.  However, as I stated before, it's not a complete solution.  Users of Ubuntu and Linux will notice the following on an Optimus-powered laptop even with Bumblebee installed:

1. Windows 7 battery performance is much, much better - Obviously, Nvidia Optimus was designed for Windows and the 4-hour battery life smokes the an hour and a half I reached running Ubuntu's latest OS and the recent release of Bumblebee.  You call that Linux support Nvidia?

2. No brightness controls - Bumblebee can be installed using the proprietary Nvidia drivers and yet I still couldn't change the brightness of my display.  The ability to do that alone probably would have added 10 to 15 minutes of battery life.  No matter how many times you adjust display brightness, via the FN keys or the desktop settings, brightness will remain the same and consume power (In fact, the brightness settings will follow the last brightness level settings on Windows 7 if you have a dual-boot machine).

3. No 3D effects - Although I'm not a huge fan of desktop effects nor do I have any fondness for the Ubuntu Unity desktop, I'm stuck with Unity 2D on my Ideapad Z360.  Again, even with Bumblebee and the Nvidia proprietary drivers.

4. Power Management Utilities fail - Another side effect of the Nvidia Optimus card is that Linux power management utilities are unable to gauge battery life very well.  Ubuntu 12.04 is actually equipped with a fairly accurate power management utility but failed to estimate battery life accurately at all and was nowhere near the real-time value. 

As much as I dote on my Lenovo Ideapad Z360, the idea that Ubuntu, openSUSE, or even Fedora will never be able to last as long as Windows 7 on the same machine makes me sometimes regret that I purchased an Optimus machine.  Considering I'm not a gamer, I probably never needed the 1GB of discrete VRAM and would have just preferred a graphics chipset that worked well with Linux without affecting battery life (say, an Intel HD integrated chipset).

Linux users don't need a rebuttal from Nvidia.  I wouldn't give them a finger like the revered Linux founder gave (replayed over and over in YouTube no less), but I would ask them respectfully to give the same attention to Linux as they did to Android.