Sony Vaio Z series and Linux: How to switch intel/nvidia card

For laptops like the Sony Vaio Z series, there is currently Linux support for cold switch of the graphics card:

Load Eva's sony-laptop module with speed_stamina=3.
In the file called /etc/modprobe.d/sony-laptop.conf add the following line:

options sony-laptop speed_stamina=3

Then boot with this kernel parameter (use the quotes):

acpi_osi="!Windows 2006"


Just put it in the kernel command line of your boot manager.

Now you can switch between stamina and speed without booting to Windows, but your laptop have to be completely powered off, not rebooted.

Nvidia driver overwrites libglx.so and libGL.so.1 with symbolic links like mentioned above. So before installing nvidia driver, backup the current libglx.so und libGL.so.1 to libglx.so.INTEL/libGL.so.INTEL. If you have already installed nvidia, you can get the original files from "xserver-xorg-core" package, respectively "libgl1-mesa-glx".

For loading the correct xorg.conf, this little script needs to run before starting xserver:



#!/bin/sh

lspci | grep "00:02.1"

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
   cp /etc/X11/xorg.INTEL /etc/X11/xorg.conf
   ln -sf /usr/lib/libGL.so.INTEL /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
   ln -sf /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.INTEL /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
else
   cp /etc/X11/xorg.NVIDIA /etc/X11/xorg.conf
   ln -sf /usr/lib/libGL.so.185.18.08 /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
   ln -sf /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.185.18.08 /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
fi

More developments are expected in the future, once the nvidia bytecode interpreter is in full shape in the nouveau project.