How well do laptops with Nvidia Optimus work?

Posted by DSJones on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by DSJones
Published on 2011-04-25T10:32:50Z Indexed on 2011/11/14 18:13 UTC
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driver

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Hardware

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nvidia-optimus

I am considering buying a Dell XPS 15 laptop. The laptop has a nvidia 420m card which should work with linux but I keep reading about the Nvidia optimus technology that isn't supported on Linux. I am not really interested in switching from Nvidia to intel to save power but need to know that the Nvidia card will infact work if i installed Ubuntu.

If anyone has experience usung a nvidia card with optimus technology or even better the exact laptop in question (Dell XPS 15 with 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 420M) it would be great.

A major problem holding people back from adopting Linux is this sort of hardware issue. I am a long term Ubuntu user and supporter who can't afford to make a mistake with a purchase like this. I don't want to spend £500+ to find I have no graphics acceleration because Windows7 is not an option.

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