A bit more info. After reinstalling the nvidia drivers (video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-390xx-bumblebee) and switching between free and non-free drivers, I have managed to break Bumblebee. The daemon is not coming up with the following errors:
Module 'bbswitch' not found.
Module 'nvidia' is not found.
I do have bbswitch installed (I reinstalled it along with mesa, acpid and bumblebee), and the nvidia drivers as mentioned above.
Bumblebee is old technology that doesn’t receive as many updates as it used to any more. Newer drivers use the prime technology, so maybe it’s time to switch?
If that’s impossible because you have an older card, try reinstalling the driver as it’s not being loaded:
Thank you @Fabby, you got it. I need to use bumblebee because of my old Nvidia card. I wish I could use Optimus.
I have tried reinstalling the driver through mhwd, but it doesn’t seem to work. mhwd chooses to install the video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-390xx-bumblebee driver as the nonfree one, but something goes weird with the nvidia card, because it doesn’t load (as you noticed).
I’ll keep on trying… Do you have any other suggestion? Thanks a lot!
Let see, what post could be a ‘subjective opinion’? Weird I’m the only one who replied. You think noting that the user was using a custom Kernel is ‘confusing’ and a ‘subjective opinion’? And not worth mentioning? OK.
The nvidia 435.21 driver supports GeForce GT 540M, at least according to their REAME[1]. And that driver supports PRIME. Well, now that I look at it, even the 450.66 (the neweset) driver supports it[2]. Am I missing something? It turns out I cannot read. Your card indeed seems to only be supported by (up to) the 390xx drivers.
Yes I was on 5.4 (5.4.61-1-BEDE-LTS) and after the update, which might have brought kernel 5.8, my drivers were not in sync, causing the problem.
I switched my drivers to the proper ones for 5.8.61-1-BEDE to solve the problem, but it took a couple of rounds of uninstalliing / installinig drivers and components.
@pobrn , I will look into the links you mention and play around during the weekend. Moving to a higher NVIDIA version might definitely help. I have tried before without success, and mhwd does install 390.138 as the default for nonfree drivers.
Thanks for your suggestion, moving up from 390 will help me also go without bumblebee and use the other hybrid card solutions.