Comment 2 for bug 794503

I'm not sure if this is actually an Optimus related bug, but:

Thanks to Rocko (rockorequin) in bug #700646

"This will give you nvidia optimus support in Linux: https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee

ie do something like:

mkdir ~/src
cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee.git
cd bumblebee
sudo ./install.sh

Note that you can uninstall it if you want via the ~/src/bumblebee/install-files/bumblebee-uninstall script.

bumblebee uses the Intel card for normal graphics and VirtualGL to use the nvidia card if you run the application preceding it with optirun64 (or optirun32 for 32 bit applications like wine). It works great on my i7 + 540M!"

More information about the bumblebee (prime-ng 2.0) for Optimus that Rocko described above can be found at http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTQxNg
An alternative approach for some Optimus laptops was also added to the Linux 3.0 kernel which will be used by the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - see http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTQzMA for further details (this article refers to the 2.6.40 kernel but it was decided to rename this kernel to 3.0).

Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" alpha 3 was released on August 4th 2011 if you want to test it before it's final release on October 13th 2011 - see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneiricReleaseSchedule