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Asked: 2015-10-13 02:04:40 +0800 CST

Use onboard graphics instead of external graphic card in Ubuntu 14.04

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I want to use 2 graphic cards in my Ubuntu 14.04.

1) An external graphic card for computations with Cuda.

2) The onboard graphic card to run my x-server on.

However when I connect my display to the onboard graphics card before bootup, Ubuntu still uses the external graphics card for the x-server.

How can I change that?

14.04

3 Answers

  1. As you have mentioned Cuda in your question, you obviously must use a NVIDIA graphics card.
    To achieve what you want, you will have to install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers and Optimus.
    After that you can switch between the graphics from NVIDIA X Server Settings PRIME Profiles.

    For GEFORCE 400 - 700 I recommend to install the NVIDIA drivers version 352 and nvidia-prime.
    For GEFORCE 800 - 900 I recommend to install the NVIDIA drivers version 358 and nvidia-prime.
    To identify the exact graphics adapter model of the external card open a terminal and execute : 

    lspci -k | grep -EA2 'VGA|3D'

    Installation instructions - the latest stable NVIDIA drivers version 352

    Highlight the Ubuntu entry in the GRUB boot menu and press the E key.
    Add nouveau.modeset=0 to the end of the linux line - press F10 to boot.

    On the login screen press Ctrl+Alt+F1 - enter your user name and your password - execute :

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-352 nvidia-prime
sudo reboot

    Installation instructions - the latest official NVIDIA drivers version 358

    Highlight the Ubuntu entry in the GRUB boot menu and press the E key.
    Add nouveau.modeset=0 to the end of the linux line - press F10 to boot.

    On the login screen press Ctrl+Alt+F1 - enter your user name and your password - execute :

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-358 nvidia-prime
sudo reboot

    Note :

    Generally you should use the drivers from the official Ubuntu repositories. Sometimes there are problems with these drivers - you can install the more current drivers from the GPU Drivers PPA. This often leads to properly working graphics, especially on very new NVIDIA GEFORCE adapters.

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  2. I believe this topic was already been discussed and solved on many other forums. beside the forums, I know by myself it is possible as I did similar setup at my college time in the lab for HPCC purposes.

    It is possible and easily feasible since Xorg supports set-up and configuration of multiple cards.

    However, below links will provide you all the steps to to the configuration you are looking for:

    1. How do I change the GRUB boot order?
    2. https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/572224/two-graphics-cards-in-linux-how-/
    3. https://launchpad.net/grub-customizer

    The discussion on nVidia (2) official forum will give you clear steps.

    You will need grub-customizer if you don't know how to handle grub manually.

    here is another link which is a bit oldish but the steps are universal and pretty can be adapted to current ubuntu systems:

    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=53966

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  3. I've got Ubuntu 20.04 and the following worked for me:

    1. Run nvidia-settings
    2. Under PRIME Profiles, choose NVIDIA On-Demand
    3. Apply and restart
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