Bug#822330: bumblebee : unable to work with any newer driver than 340.96 - even backported bumblebee-nvidia install doesn't work (failed to set DRM interface version 1.4 too)

[Julien ROBIN]

Hi Vincent,

I already tried that grub modification (rcutree.rcu_idle_gp_delay=1) a lot of times in the past but probably in different conditions, because here, it worked !

In summary now, here is how you can simply get it working, following all that I did (I made a new fresh legacy-bios install just to be double sure !)

   0 - You need a computer with an Intel Display + Nvidia discrete card (mine is Asus R510JK - DM086H, with up to date bios, i5-4200H and GeForce 850M)
   1 - the simplest and minimalist net-installer for example (amd64 - 8.4.0 - started and installed as efi or legacy-bios, workaround work for both)
   2 - in my case, I work with : apt-get install lightdm lxde-core aptitude mesa-utils (I also added leafpad, synaptic and chromium, realtek and WiFi drivers + wicd, xarchiver pavucontrol for having sound card selection, and xbacklight for screen light intensity)
   3 - modify /etc/default/grub to add rcutree.rcu_idle_gp_delay=1 into GRUB_CMD_LINE and GRUB_CMD_LINE_DEFAULT, then "update-grub" as root and "reboot".
   4 - aptitude -t jessie-backports install bumblebee-nvidia, rebooted and it works ! Today it installs bumblebee 3.2.1-10~bpo8+1, and nvidia 352.79-1~bpo8+1 and a lot of others things.

Having already tried that grub modification in the past without success for what seemed to be the same error, before I can confirm you that this workaround doesn't work with the standard jessie's bumblebee installation - and all the sub-packages that comes with - it would be more nearly sure for me to try again and look if the error logs were the same !

Thanks for your help, and :

I would suggest adding this simple procedure, for those who need a version >340.96 of the nvidia driver, into the Debian bumblebee installation's wiki :

  1 - with backports enabled into source.list, apt-get update and aptitude -t jessie-backports install bumblebee-nvidia
  2 - modify /etc/default/grub to add rcutree.rcu_idle_gp_delay=1 into GRUB_CMD_LINE and GRUB_CMD_LINE_DEFAULT, then "update-grub" and "reboot"
      (or may be, 2bis, use the backported version of the kernel, but I didn't tested it)

And last thing : is this backported simple and full installation of bumblebee-nvidia working for anyone without the second point ? I didn't tested the newer backported kernel, because few days in the past, I had game crashes and kernel panics every few minutes with a more recent kernel on ubuntu 15.10, that's why I will first give it a try with 3.16 before upgrading if I really need :)

Thanks again for you help, I hope this thread could have clarified things for others people trying to play with Debian !

Best regards,
Julien ROBIN