No Optimus support means NO Nvidia at all or no dynamic switching?

[Licaon]

Originally Posted by rdusan

I think this is a case for reporting nVidia to consumer protection agencies in US/EU!

Actually you can't report anyone as the GPU works as expected by itself, only the OEM integrator ( sau Acer, ASUS, MSI, Dell, whatever ) decides if you have or not that switch in BIOS, and since neither nVidia nor the OEM promised any Linux support you have no case.

[Gusar]

Originally Posted by rdusan

I think this is a case for reporting nVidia to consumer protection agencies in US/EU!

LOL. Seriously, LOL. You know how much hardware is out there that doesn't support Linux? Are you going to report all those vendors that don't mention "this thing don't work in Linux" on their boxes?

Anyway, are you familiar with the phrase "caveat emptor"?

[stoppete]

Originally Posted by LLStarks

There's no BIOS option.

I've read that already, but I'll check anyway. Won't hurt I guess.

Originally Posted by LLStarks

You would've better spent your money on a 6770M in the new HP dv6t SE/QE.

I still don't know what I'll buy with the money I'll get back from Dell, but I know for sure that I won't spend them on anything with an nVidia logo on it.

[rdusan]

Originally Posted by Licaon

Actually you can't report anyone as the GPU works as expected by itself, only the OEM integrator ( sau Acer, ASUS, MSI, Dell, whatever ) decides if you have or not that switch in BIOS...

nVidia designed Optimus with in mind not to have hardwired output on its GPU, so if OEM integrator adds it that's something extra, like extra DVI connector, additional WiMAX adapter or even additional ATI GPU. Otherwise it would mean that OEMs are hacking nVidia technology which is illegal.

Originally Posted by Gusar

You know how much hardware is out there that doesn't support Linux?...
Anyway, are you familiar with the phrase "caveat emptor"?

This here is change of politic, discontinuation, with no clear notification to the potential buyers.
Caveat emptor it is, always, but then what are all consumer protection lows for?

The simplest way is to report nVidia and then the agency alone will see if there is the case or not (and if it's not no one will be charged or sued for false reporting).

[Gusar]

Originally Posted by rdusan

This here is change of politic, discontinuation, with no clear notification to the potential buyers.

Nvidia never advertised Optimus support in Linux, so I have no idea what change or discontinuation you're talking about here.

[rdusan]

I am talking about GPU.

The lack of Optimus support for Linux or WindowsXP is not a problem, but that lack breaks up the GPU even though Optimus is not part of GPU itself.
Problem is: there is no warning about that (which would, logically, stand in Optimus technology page).

[Gusar]

Originally Posted by rdusan

(which would, logically, stand in Optimus technology page).

What logic exactly? Like I said, lots of products don't support Linux, but you won't see it written on their pages.

[rdusan]

OK, when an average computer user reads about Optimus on its home page he can conclude:
that its a gpu switcher, though in front page it looks more like kind of power plan tweaker or (GPU?) clocker
that its a separate product from a GPU card
that its a hardware (only) product

That is (maybe not the best example) something like having a VCR and a TV. So, the normal expectations and behaviour when the VCR doesn't work is to still be able to watch TV, but in this case behaviour is: when VCR doesn't work the TV also doesn't work. Seems more like having a Set-top box and a TV!

Facts that (at least) nVidia's GPU depends on this technology, that is also heavy software based are crucial and must not stand in whitepapers or in forums but in front page so the potential buyers know what it is and in right way decide do they want it or not.

[cheechr1]

Facts that (at least) nVidia's GPU depends on this technology, that is also heavy software based are crucial and must not stand in whitepapers or in forums but in front page so the potential buyers know what it is and in right way decide do they want it or not.

If Nvidia would have done that they would have lost alot of business because of all the Linux users!

[Deanjo]

Originally Posted by rdusan

That is (maybe not the best example) something like having a VCR and a TV. So, the normal expectations and behaviour when the VCR doesn't work is to still be able to watch TV, but in this case behaviour is: when VCR doesn't work the TV also doesn't work. Seems more like having a Set-top box and a TV!

To further your example, you bought a PAL TV/VCR in Europe expecting it to play NTSC in North America.

[volrend]

I am in the same boat. Have to figure out if I can return my $1600 brick and buy a different machine that I can use for scientific computing. nv has lost my business and my long standing endorsement of their hardware being worth the extra cash. It would not have been hard for them to anticipate this and provide a fix as minimal as "turn the low power chip off" in the bios. It would not have been hard to simply advertise that this thing, unlike all(?) their other gpus is windows only.

those of you looking for a partial solution might be interested in looking at vmware's 3d acceleration drivers. if you install a sufficiently old distro (ubuntu 10.04 for example) through player (free), vmware tools will automatically build the vmwgfx driver and give you some minimal hardware gl. however, the hardware you get access to appears to be the crummy intel chip and the virtualization is pretty lacking (broken glsl, tiny max texture units, no cuda, obviously...) But if all you want is compiz, it's okay.

[Gusar]

Originally Posted by volrend

It would not have been hard for them to anticipate this and provide a fix as minimal as "turn the low power chip off" in the bios.

You can't provide a "fix" for something that's not there physically. Also, Nvidia doesn't make laptops.

Originally Posted by volrend

It would not have been hard to simply advertise that this thing, unlike all(?) their other gpus is windows only.

Expecting for companies to advertise what they don't support is... weird, to say the least. Should each box have stickers on it saying "No support in Linux", "No support in FreeBSD", "No support in Solaris", "No support for Haiku", etc, etc, etc?

That all said, look into Bumblebee.