Intel and DisplayPort / HDM I/ External Monitor

[Adunaic]

I will admit that I and a little confused on the harware stuff these day.
I have a Dell XPS 17 laptop that had nvidia optimus installed on it. I have never been able to get the nvidia drivers installed and working with linux on this laptop ( i seem to have no option to disable optimus in the bios).

I wish to use an external monitor with my laptop last time I tried with the HDMI port I had little success. Has anyone tried the intel graphics and HDMI / Display Port? Should it work or do I need the nvidia drivers installed to use them?

[Becks21]

it should work.. and works for me (at least THIS is working )

I am using the integrated intel graphics 4000 (ivy-bridge), it doesnt matter if I enable or disable the dedicated GPU (ati 7970m in my case)

If I plug in my external monitor to the DisplayPort it is automatically detected and setup as "extending the desktop".. you might want to go to "System-Settings -> Displays" and see if a second display is properly detected and set up..

[kordirko]

I have some bad news to tell you.
Read wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Optimus

Nvidia itself has no plans to support Optimus on GNU/Linux.
.........
is not working using an official driver on anything except Windows 7 because of lacking architectural infrastructure of other operating systems.

So, don't even try to install official nvidia driver on linux with nvidia optimus card, it is not supposed to work.
Optimus technology is fully supported only on Windows 7 for now ( 7 and only on 7 - even vista and xp is not supported !!!).

For now, in my opinion, the best option to run nvidia optimus on linux is Bumblebee project.
For fedora 16/17 there is the only tutorial that worked for me (i have dell inspiron Q17r with nvidia optimus 525m) here
https://www.google.pl/#hl=pl&sclient....,cf.osb&cad=b
(click on the first displayed link - this is very strange, I cannot paste the oryginal link here, because this forum is claiming that this link contains forbidden words

I recommend you to install a fresh copy of fedora, because this tutorial would probably not work if you have tried to install propietrary drivers from nvidia.

But even Bumblebee does not support HDMI output for now - as the say on their wiki they are working hard on this:
https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ

I have tried various tutorials found on the net to make hdmi working on linux, but had little success (managed to make display working, but keyboard and mouse were not responding), and finnaly I installed Windows 7 and I am using it when I need hdmi output

[stevea]

On my lenovo T510 I've used EITHER the Intel graphics or the nvidia (selected in BIOS) but only with the FOSS drivers. I briefly experimented w/ the switcheroo' kernel hooks for switching between. Works but way too awkward.

Yes I've use both w/ the DP or HDMI.
xrandr is your pal.

[Adunaic]

Thanks for the replies.

@stevea: On this model of dell I lack the bios option to switch between the two. I do have that option on my more expensive (but slightly older) dell.

@kordirko: I realised this, however thankyou for posting the info, I did not knwo about the HDMI with it.

@Becks21: Thanks, managed to find a coworker with an old Mac DP->DVI cable and it worked straight away with out any tweaks. - Feel dirty now for touching something from Apple.

On a related note, now that I know it works I am thinking of getting a nice external monitor, I was looking at this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-Ultrash...r_1_1?ie=UTF8&
qid=1342520949&sr=8-1

Any one tried it / have recommendations on a screen? I would prefer a matt/satin screen than a glossy one.