ASUS N61JV-X2 and nVIDIA Optimus

[Welly Wu]

I have an ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC with an Intel Ironlake Mobile built-in graphics and nVIDIA GeForce GT 325M GPU with nVIDIA Optimus. I installed Red Hat Fedora 16 64 bit GNU/Linux and I also installed Bumblebee version 3.x. When I power on my computer or reboot, I am presented with the GRUB menu to select a specific Linux kernel to boot. Afterwards, I get an error message that says Nouveau and invalid ROM along with some more specific error messages like it can not access my Advanced USB 3.0 hub. I usually disconnect all USB, eSATA, HDMI, and ExpressCard/34 when I power on my computer or reboot to minimize the errors. My problem is that it gets stuck at the same error message screen stating that it is trying to load Nouveau and there is an invalid ROM.

Does this mean that I should blacklist Nouveau at boot-up?

I installed Bumblebee version 3.x so I think that I am using the proprietary closed source nVIDIA graphics drivers because I can run optirun glxspheres properly and I get 3D graphics acceleration.

What should I do to avoid this error message at boot-up?

If I have to blacklist Nouveau, then how do I do it?

I just want to make sure that I am describing the situation correctly as this is becoming an annoying problem. I encrypted my Intel 2nd Generation X25-M 160.00 GB SSD so I am having problems getting to the pre-boot authentication prompt because of the invalid ROM error message associated with Nouveau at boot-up after I select the specific Linux kernel that I want to load.

I think that this should be an easy solution, but I am concerned about doing a search on how to blacklist Nouveau, apply the changes, and wind up with another problem like not having graphics at all. I just wanted to post this thread to solicit opinions on how I should proceed to solve this specific error message that I get at boot-up.

Thank you.

[Welly Wu]

The Red Hat Fedora Project updated its guidelines to install both the nouveau and nvidia versions of the Bumblebee Project. I followed the guidelines for using nouveau. I had problems with trying to install the nvidia drivers because when I tried to use dkms to install the bbswitch module, it kept telling me that it can not find the dkms.conf file. I get the same error whenever I try to use dkms install because it can not find the dkms.conf file even though I use the -c and I specify the exact location of the dkms.conf file.

Why is this happening?

How do I fix this problem so that I can use dkms to install bbswitch?

I guess that this means that I can not blacklist nouveau at boot up now. I am going to reboot my computer to test the changes that I made and I hope that I will not experience any show stopping problems.