hybrid-graphics-linux team mailing list archive

["Vangel V. Ajanovski" <ajanovski@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/03/2011 11:09 AM, Peter Goodall wrote:
> The fact of the matter is that X has some major architectural
> challenges that will not allow it to hot swap the video card without
> restarting X.  There is work to be done on many fronts, and lists like
> this help developers communicate about how to solve the myriad of
> issues and users to post data on their experiences with the hardware.
OK lets be productive.

I think that if you do a survey you will probably find out that although 
100% of the people would like to have on the fly switching just as 
another show off feature, but only 5% of them would really need it 
according to their work pattern. Most of the people on this list came 
here for a solution to completely turn off the discrete card in order 
save as much battery as possible. Most of the latest talks are about how 
much power is wasted in one mode, and how much in another.

I like to keep things separate, so in order to be post productive, I 
will ask two separate questions.
I have a HP Pavilion dm4t-1100 with Intel i5-460M CPU with Intel / ATI 
5470HD combination.
Which distribution (Ubuntu ?.?? or any other) will allow me to do these 
two things:

a) I would like to use the discrete gpu 100% of the time with ATI drivers.
b) When I work on battery I would like to have every possible power 
saving and have world-record battery life. Everything off except 
LibreOffice (maybe AbiWord or even GoogleDocs would be enough), Firefox, 
Thunderbird, Skype and wireless.

I am willing to even install separate distributions on separate 
partitions or even use an USB or live CD for this because I need to 
switch only when I'm travelling. Which setup would be the best for this?

I have the laptop for 1 month and still havent found a way to do a)