Set Up Bumblebee With Bumblebee Configurator GUI [Nvidia Optimus]

The latest proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers, released a few days ago, include initial Optimus support for Linux, but there's still a long way to go until Linux will get full Optimus support. Until then, Linux users have Bumblebee, which is still required for proper gaming on Nvidia Optimus-based laptops.

Bumblebee Configurator GUI is a new tool that allows you to easily set up Bumblebee.

The tool is a front-end for the Bumblebee configuration files and allows you to:

• set the secondary Xorg server display number;
• set if the card should be turned off at exit or not;
• select the driver (proprietary Nvidia drivers or Nouveau);
• select the acceleration / rendering bridge: auto, virtualgl ("optirun") or primus ("primusrun");
• set the method used for VirtualGL to transport frames between X servers: proxy, jpeg, rg, xv or yuv;
• set the proprietary Nvidia driver version (e.g.: nvidia-304, nvidia-310 and so on) as well as set the library paths;
• more;

Bumbbebee Configurator GUI is pretty easy to use but it lacks explanations for what each option does but hopefully some tooltips or some other way of informing the user about each option will be added in a future release.

When saving the changes, the tool automatically restarts the Bumblebee daemon so there's no need to log out or restart the daemon yourself.

Install Bumblebee Configurator GUI in Ubuntu

Bumblebee Configurator GUI is in its early development stages so you may encounter bugs. If you do, report them @ Launchpad.

Bumblebee Configurator GUI is available in a PPA for Ubuntu (and derrivates) users - add the PPA and install it using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alessandrofac93/bumblebee-config-gtk-dev
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bumblebee-config-gtk

Once installed, launch Bumblebee Configurator GUI from the menu / Dash.

For other Linux distributions you can get the Bumblebee Configurator GUI code via Launchpad.