# Nvidia Optimus

## ad_meis

Dear Gentooers,

what is the current (and expected) status of the issues with nvidia optimus on gentoo?

I am asking you this, because i am planning to buy a lenovo t420s and the model the is now available only has nVidia NVS 4200M (1GB), 

 Optimus discrete.

Is it really hard to have it working in gentoo? I am not really a wizard in having things working...

I did not find many posts on that, but almost all of them (albeit somewhat old) suggest not to get an nVidia. Do you share this point of view? can you provide me some references?

thank you

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## roarinelk

Some machines with Optimus allow you to permanently enable the nvidia chip

(and thus disable the intel one).  On others you're currently mostly out of luck,

although some hacks exist.

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## Gusar

Does the laptop have a hardware mux, allowing you to switch to the nvidia card in the bios? Of not, Bumblebee is the hackish but working solution.

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## ad_meis

Are there any chance that there will be support for switchable graphics ? 

If I understand correctly the advantage of nVidia optimus is the auto-switch between discrete and integrated graphics. Is this going to be working under Linux Gentoo?

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## Gusar

 *ad_meis wrote:*   

> If I understand correctly the advantage of nVidia optimus is the auto-switch between discrete and integrated graphics.

 

You understand incorrectly, Optimus is not about switching. Optimus is about running only specific apps on the nvidia card, while the internal card handles the rest. You never switch away from the internal card, the internal card is the only one with physical outputs. Unless the laptop has a hardware mux, but that's not Optimus anymore, that's a feature the laptop vendor can provide in addition to Optimus.

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