Well, in that case it turns out nobody needs anything but built in graphics, who knew?
Welcome to Linux where gaming doesn't need discrete graphics.

You got a problem buddy? I'm just sharing my personal experience. I've made it clear i'm not a big gamer. I have little experience with seperate gpus, but i know that what i do use, just seems to work; so i answered the Ops question. If the OP is a big gamer, then they'll make that clear when they review these replies, and more suggestion will be given that will be better suited.
Until then however, or unless you've something beneficial to contribute to the conversation, i suggest you remove that stick out of your arse, because at the moment, you've only disagreed with others, without actually making a suggestion your self.

For what it's worth, I've had 2 HP notebooks with NVidia video---no serious issues

Not a DV6000 or 9000 then I assume, there was a class action lawsuit over those, they were the worst.

I blame ROHS too though, that lead free solder they are using is terrible for BGA components that get hot. Same thing that happened in XBox360s, if you reball one with lead solder it will never fail again.

I ended up purchasing a brand new Dell XPS 15z laptop (http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15z/pd) and it came with Nvidia video hardware. So in your experience with Dell you never had proprietary video hardware? Because it turns out I do, andI'm actually having some difficulties installing 'kmod-nvidia' or 'akmod-nvidia' which are what the online tutorials recommend. (It could be because I'm using Fedora 17 beta version, will try again in a week when Fedora 17 is released, though I don't expect that would change much.)

Also, on their website Dell says their only supported OS for my laptop is Windows 7 64-bit (which is what it comes preinstalled with), and they offer 14 .exe driver downloads, but nothing for Linux. Do vendors ever ship Linux drivers directly, or is it up to Linux users to get them from elsewhere?

How do I know which drivers I need? For example, I can't do horizontal scrolling on my touchpad, and in the mouse settings there's no option to enable this. I wonder if that means there's a driver I need, but how can I find out if I am missing a touchpad driver and if so, how I can get it? But the bigger question is how do I know I'm not missing other drivers, resulting in a system that works but isn't taking full advantage of the hardware capabilities of this powerful new laptop?

For example, how do I know if I need the video drivers? Right now things look crisp and clear enough, but I can't help but notice that something feels a bit strange about the way things look. For example, JPG images in particular (on Facebook, Google Images, and other websites) look a bit off (the iamge quality looks far too 'sharp' and 'crisp', not in a good way, if you know what I mean), even if I download those images and view them offline. Could this have something to do with not having the right video drivers? How do I tell which video drivers I am currently using if not the Nvidia ones?

Ah, sorry for all the questions here. It's my first time both with Fedora and with Dell, combined with the fact that I'm still very much a Linux newbie, leads me to really need your further guidance on this. Thanks a lot


How can I find out if my new laptop has this hybrid Intel and Nvidia graphics or is just Nvidia?

Try a Toshiba OR a Acer OR a HP/compaq

stay away from Dell - they use customised hardware

I don't know much about Fedora but you could look for an application called nvidia-settings which will tell you what version of the nvidia driver you have installed.

I have to agree that unless you need it avoid nvidia graphics cards. Intel will give you a lot less headaches in the long run. That is not to say that nvidia is horrible, but in my experience it is better to go with something that supports open source as it will work better out of the box.

That said, since the OP went with nvidia what's done is done. Fedora 17 is still beta so it can be hard to say exactly what the issue might be. But also, Fedora uses the open source drivers by default and these are sometimes not great, especially when it comes to 3D. Were you ever able to install the drivers from nvidia? Have you tried Fedora 16? Have you tried using Ubuntu, as it is suppose to set up the nvidia drivers automatically for you?

For future reference, you might want to look at Zareason and System 76 next time you want to buy a computer. Both will install Linux on it for you. Zareason will even install Fedora on it.

1 members found this post helpful.

I agree with scorpioofthewoods, Linux venders or what ever they're called, I think are to often forgotten about. I encourage every Linux user to check them places out before buying a new laptop. it should have been mentioned sooner. none of them venders provided a laptop with the battery life I require when I was buying a new laptop last year, so I contacted zareason, and told them why I wasn't buying one of there laptops. they replied and seemed like they appreciated my criticism and were going to take it on board and try to improve there products. I like that.

@the op
I'm sorry to inform you, but that laptop does have hybrid graphics. the keyword is "optimus". if your anything like me, you will grow to curse either that laptop or Linux. I made the same mistake and purchased an optumus laptop without doing my homework. three months later I did my homework and purchased a thibkpad. the optimus laptop now sits and collects dust. you might want to look into bumblebee. a user on this forums who's handle is cascade9 seems to know a bit about optimus graphics and Linux, maybe he or someone else will help you get it working.

Hmmm...i thought I had posted on this thread before, obviously I failed somehwere, LOL.

@ Knightron- using 10year old+ games to demonstrate that intel HD 3000 (or 2000/4000 for that matter) works 'for games' isnt that great a point. In general, HD 3000 is about as fast for 3D as a ATI/AMD HD5450. That is playing the numbers a bit, due to the way that intel HD XXXX graphics works- it uses the CPU cache, and larger cache CPUs are generally faster than lower cache CPUs with the same video chip. HD XXXX also uses 'turbo boost' as well, and that actually plays a bigger part in performance than CPU cache.

HD 3000 will run older games well, and newer games with lower graphical requirements OK. Anthing that needs real GPU power will have issues with intel HD graphics. Points for actually telling zareason why you wouldnt get a laptop from them. IMO it wouldnt be cost effective anyway, zareason and system 76 both just sell rebranded 'other peoples laptops' (mostly lenovo AFAIK) and the import costs to and waiting times to get to australia would be high. Difficulty in getting service if there is any hardware problems would be a kicker as well.

The funny thing is that I've only ever setup bumblebee a few times, I'm not really a laptop user at all. I like desktops, they are easier to work on, easier to fix, cheaper, and far more upgradeable.

@ elliott678- Are you really going to use the old 'failing solder joints'/bumpgate issue as a reason to not get nVidia hardware? Fair enough, it thats what you want, but the underfil problem has been fixed, and in many ways it wasnt nVidias fault. (BTW, I actually own a 8600GT and a 8400GS which were both 'bumpgate' parts, and both have been running without any issues for some time).

You will need bumblebee to get the nVidiad drivers installed and working. This page should help-

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bumblebee

If you did get the nVidia driers installed without bumblebee on an 'optimus' laptop, it just breaks 'X' (the desktop/GUI). Unless you've got one of teh nice laptops with a BIOS switch to chnage between intel, 'optimus'and nVidia, in which case you can just set the display to nVidia and act like its not an optimus laptop at all (not an option on the XPS 15z as far as I know)

Its possible that some vendors do have linux drivers up on the company site. I've never seen it happen though.

Its made a lot more complicated by the various different package management systems distros use.

Pretty much every linux dsitro will install open source drivers 'out of the box'. About the only time you will need closed source drivers or non-free firmware is for network chips, sound chips, etc.. (ATI/AMD and nVidia GPUs almost always have closed source drivers, but in a lot of cases they arent 'needed', just preformance tends to be better with the closed source drivers). You wont even need the closed source drivers or non-free firmware in some cases, even if they are avaible.

As long as the distro you are using is newer than the hardware (or hardware family) you shouldnt have any issues with the chipset or CPU.

Damned cypress trackpads....harder to get going than Synaptics trackpads. I dont actaully know how you setup the trackpad with fedora 17, sorry.

Listed the loaded drivers isnt that hard (the command is 'lsmod')

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lsmod

Reading the lsmod output isnt much fun unless you've got expereince. Still its not that hard to figure out without experience, it will just take some search engine use.

What can make images 'look a bit off' is drivers (you shouldnt be having any major driver issues with the intel HD video chip), resolution (running screen at 'non-native' resolution can make things badly skewed) or just cheap displays.

Run this comamnd-

lspci

If you get 2 video adapters in the readout (intel HD + nVidia XXXXX) then its got (probably) some form of hybrid graphics. I say 'probably' because you can get 2 video adapters even with desktops with the right or wrong setup....

I know, you wanted more info, but thats all I've got now. I feel like there is some stupid gnome in my head going silly with a sledgehammer right now. Time for some ibuprofen, coffee and mabye some cannabinoids to get rid of it. I'll check later, probably tomorrow, fix the typos and hopefully think up some better answers to your questions. If some other helpful person here hasnt aready answered them as well or better than I could.

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Haven't had any problems with ATI like that. And yeah, the ATI closed source drivers don't always keep up with the kernel updates. I just wait to update the kernel until I see kmod-catalyst drivers included in the update.

I had an older Dell Inspiron 1545 that ran Kubuntu fine. It had the GMA945 chipset and came with 1 GB of RAM. Also, it was a Celeron and originally came with Windows Vista Basic. I hated the Broadcom chipset and had to wait until Ubuntu came with the drivers or download it from a Windows partition and use bwcutter. That was a pain with the kernel updates.

But what happens when the company decides to quit supporting the closed source driver and then since they are no longer updated they stop working?

I hated my dell. Plus they have a reputation with batteries going bad. I know a few people with that issue and they charge $100+ for a new battery. I have a Toshiba that's fine, but I would go with a good HP.

Either stop updating the kernel and keep the old drivers, get a new laptop (and video card is desktop), or hope there are open source driver so you can at least use them. switching to windows won't help because you'll still have to you the last supported drivers for you hardware. I speak from experience when i say this. I had a Toshiba with an ATI Radeon 1200x and a year later they dropped support. Maybe go with an Intel based video card.

That was the point I was trying to get across. If you don't really need the closed cards then look at something that is open such as Intel. This is especially so since Intel cards have gotten better.

I am just frustrated at nvidia right now. I know my video card is old in my old desktop but there is nothing wrong with it for what it is used for. The open source drivers (thank the team for trying) don't always work all that great.

I know some people need a high end video card, be it for work or play. I am just saying to take a look at what you realistically need to save yourself some headaches.