Switching NVIDIA driver

Hey there. I’m considering switching my drivers out so my intel CPU is not at all used for graphics and only the dedicated NVIDIA card is used (GeForce 940M). Is this a good decision? I want to be able to use Wayland and any program normally. If that’s possible, what are the steps? The hybrid driver is required by the kernel and nvidia-utils, which isn’t letting me remove the package, so I’m not sure how to proceed with this.

System info:

inxi -Fxz

System:    Kernel: 5.11.10-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.3 Distro: Manjaro Linux 
           base: Arch Linux 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire E5-573G v: V3.72 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Acer model: ZORO_BH v: Type2 - A01 Board Version serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: 1.37 date: 02/16/2016 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 27.3 Wh (97.2%) condition: 28.1/37.0 Wh (75.9%) volts: 17.2 min: 14.8 model: SANYO AL15A32 
           status: Unknown 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-5200U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Broadwell rev: 4 cache: L2: 3 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 17567 
           Speed: 2371 MHz min/max: 500/2700 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2371 2: 1817 3: 1490 4: 1011 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 5500 vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce 940M] vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: nvidia v: 460.67 bus-ID: 04:00.0 
           Device-3: Chicony HD WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 2-7:4 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: intel,nouveau,nvidia 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 5500 (BDW GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.1 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Broadwell-U Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:03.0 
           Device-2: Intel Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.11.10-1-MANJARO running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.17 running: no 
           Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: no 
           Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.24 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8168 
           v: 8.048.03-NAPI port: 4000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 
           IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Lite-On driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel 
           port: 4000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Lite-On Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 2-5:3 
           Report: ID: hci0 state: up address: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 596.17 GiB used: 200.94 GiB (33.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: MK6465GSX size: 596.17 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 376.95 GiB used: 200.92 GiB (53.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 
           ID-2: /boot/efi size: 574.5 MiB used: 25.5 MiB (4.4%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 16 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 211 Uptime: 15m Memory: 7.69 GiB used: 4.95 GiB (64.3%) Init: systemd Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 
           clang: 11.1.0 Packages: 1993 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8 inxi: 3.3.03

Hi @CRN110 ,

It almost seems to me that you’d need to disable the integrated graphics in the BIOS, followed by (and I’m not 100% sure this is necessary, I’m being on the safe side here) booting into a Live ISO environment and then entering a chroot environment for your installation.

Then you can remove the hybrid drivers, install the normal ones, and reboot.

Note:
First make sure your dedicated graphics card is supported by the latest drivers.

It’s a good idea if your hardware supports that. Some hardware has the internal screen wired to the Intel and the HDMI output to the nVidia. On my Acer predator it’s wired to both, but I don’t know about the Acer Aspire.

To activate the nVidia only, uninstall the Intel driver from a console and install the nVidia-only driver there too and then reboot.

  • Print this page so you have it as a reference while in TTY2

  • Log off

  • Switch to TTY2 by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2

  • Log in there

  • Execute:

    sudo mhwd --listinstalled
    
  • Remove intel (Depends on the output of the above command)

  • Add one additional LTS kernel and the nVidia driver:

    sudo mhwd-kernel --install linux510 #use 54 if you have 510 already
    sudo mhwd --install pci video-nvidia
    
  • to ensure grub is showing, execute:

     sudo nano --backup /etc/default/grub
    
  • Change (or add?) the following 3 lines:

    GRUB_TIMEOUT=3
    #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
    #GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
    

    (3 or higher is fine, add the # before the lines above if those lines are present)

  • Ctrl+X Y Enter to save if there is anything to save

  • If you did save, execute:

     sudo update-grub
    
  • Reboot

  • Go to grub’s Advanced options

  • Choose the kernels you have one by one and try them out one by one and see if that helps.

  • If you have black screens everywhere, go back to what you had because you have a hardware issue…

:crossed_fingers:

Why not just install optimus manager and switch with 1 click to the nvidia card? That way you skip all the driver substitution.

And with that,install the gui

That way in the systray you have a menu with 3 options depending what you want.

image

Nvidia doesn’t support wayland yet

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