[TUTORIAL] Installing official NVIDIA driver in Optimus laptop

[TiGER511]

Maybe you have to use different xorg.conf file. even if you blacklist Nvidia driver, you can not switch graphics card on demand like in windows with this procedure. you have to restart and change xorg.conf everytime you want to change GPU.why would anyone wanna do that?
If you really want power saving, try bumble bee.There is very good tutorials regarding bumble bee in this forum.

[darthsoul]

Maybe you have to use different xorg.conf file. even if you blacklist Nvidia driver, you can not switch graphics card on demand like in windows with this procedure. you have to restart and change xorg.conf everytime you want to change GPU.why would anyone wanna do that?
If you really want power saving, try bumble bee.There is very good tutorials regarding bumble bee in this forum.

Thanks for the reply. i saw it on ubuntu forums that it can be switched withing nvidia x server software but its not the case with kali it seems. are they any disadvantages using bumblebee instead of this method ?

[TiGER511]

Thanks for the reply. i saw it on ubuntu forums that it can be switched withing nvidia x server software but its not the case with kali it seems. are they any disadvantages using bumblebee instead of this method ?

well i haven't really heard anything like that.as far as i know,nvidia driver starts up with xorg server,if you wanna switch then xorg.conf has to be changed and then the xorg server has to be restarted so it uses new config file.

I haven't used bumblebee,so i don't really know. but bumblebee should be power effeicient since you can turn on/off dGPU like in Windows.

[carloxrojo]

Hey dude, can you pls help me? I did every step successfully but after i write the optimus.desktop files i get stuck at boot screen, and I am forced to revert the changes, and i cant install the drivers...., is there a way to work around this issue?
my system is:
"Linux kali 4.13.0-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.13.4-2kali1 (2017-10-16) x86_64 GNU/Linux"
"00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 850M] (rev a2)"

[TiGER511]

Hey dude, can you pls help me? I did every step successfully but after i write the optimus.desktop files i get stuck at boot screen, and I am forced to revert the changes, and i cant install the drivers...., is there a way to work around this issue?
my system is:
"Linux kali 4.13.0-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.13.4-2kali1 (2017-10-16) x86_64 GNU/Linux"
"00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 850M] (rev a2)"

Which display manager you are using?

[xperiago]

Thanks for your effort, to take the time to prepare and share to others.

100% Working.

System info:

Linux admin 4.14.0-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.14.2-1kali1 (2017-12-04) x86_64 GNU/Linux

DISTRIB_ID=Kali
DISTRIB_RELEASE=kali-rolling
DISTRIB_CODENAME=kali-rolling
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Kali GNU/Linux Rolling"
PRETTY_NAME="Kali GNU/Linux Rolling"
NAME="Kali GNU/Linux"
ID=kali
VERSION="2017.3"
VERSION_ID="2017.3"
ID_LIKE=debian
ANSI_COLOR="1;31"
HOME_URL="http://www.kali.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://forums.kali.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://bugs.kali.org/"

Commands output:

glxinfo | grep -i "direct rendering"
        direct rendering: Yes

xrandr --verbose|grep PRIME
	PRIME Synchronization: 1 
	PRIME Synchronization: 1 
	PRIME Synchronization: 1 
	PRIME Synchronization: 1

Hardware info:

system         ASUS N550JK (ASUS-NotebookSKU)
processor      Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700HQ CPU @ 2.40GHz
memory         8GiB SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz (0.6 ns)
display        GM107M [GeForce GTX 850M]
display        4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller

[SeVaS]

You have a good tek here and I commend your effort. I successfully installed the nvidia proprietary driver on my system.

I would like to make a few suggestions on edits to your tek that I think are absolutely necessary.

1) You need to tell people that the Proprietary NVIDIA driver ( the .run file) isnt fully compatible with Kali and is not recommended.

• When

  apt-get

  system returns "Nvidia.run conflicts with Kali. Please uninstall. Would you like to do that now?" Tell it 'No' and it hangs.

2) You need to change the part about removing NVIDIA* >>

apt-get remove --purge nvidia*

• Tell people this is potentially dangerous, as it could break graphics ability and aptitude.
  
  
  • https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=631938
    
  • see glx-diversions
    
  • occurs when attempting to reinstall Nvidia drivers/ system crash/ ill configured xorg.conf
    
  
  
• Recommend instead to remove packages individually and make notes of installed pkgs.

  apt-get remove --purge nvidia-xconfig nvidia-driver

  ocl-icd-libopencl1 nvidia-cuda-toolkit

  
  

Im not really sure what I did to cause my issue, but I **** sure tried everything that I could find, so many thats the problem. But either way, I think you should warn people about the possibility of a Black Hole through GLX. This bug has been going on since 2011 and still hasnt been fixed.

But again. Thank you for the tutorial! I gave up and tried things on google and came back here only to find that this was it. My experiments with google are what really got me stuck. This worked, but then I tried to update the xorg.conf on my own and do some other silly **** and ended up in a Black Hole.

[Karado]

First, BIG thanks to @TiGER511

I can confirm it works beautifully with Kali 2018.1

One slight issue in my case:

Step #8:

glxinfo | grep -i "direct rendering"

gave me the following:

bash: glxinfo: command not found

Fix:

apt-get install mesa-utils

WORKING beautifully!!!