Intel, NVIDIA Hybrid GPU Switching On Linux Nears

A month after making some small progress towards "hybrid graphics switching" on Linux to allow notebooks with dual GPUs (usually a low-power integrated graphics processor and a performance-oriented but high-powered discrete GPU), Red Hat's David Airlie is beginning to get things working for Intel and NVIDIA GPU combos on notebooks such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T410. Hybrid graphics on Linux still sucks, but at least it's getting better.

In a branch dubbed "drm-nvidia-switch" of David Airlie's Linux kernel DRM testing tree he has the kernel portion working for switching between the Intel IGP and the NVIDIA GPU with the open-source i915 and Nouveau DRM/KMS drivers, respectively. However, some bits are still missing and this will not work in all notebooks, but testing is just being done on the ThinkPad.

More details on this Linux GPU switching achievement can be found on David Airlie's blog.