Installing Nvidia Optimus/Hybrid Graphics Drivers

The following is a quick guide to get Linux Mint 17 (or any ubuntu 14.04 derivitive) working well with a nvidia optimus / hybrid graphics card.

As of June 2014 the old style installation I showed you wont work. Bumblebee just doesnt install well with linux mint 17. As a result you have to install nvidia-prime. Instead of running on an intel graphics card and then activating the nvidia at will, you have to switch to either one or the other. Another down side is you have to restart X or ideally reboot to run one or the other. If bumblebee ever gets up to speed with the latest linux I'll do up a new(er) how to.

First we get rid of any reminants of bumblebee:

We also need to get rid of a package that can cause some problems...

Now we finally install all the needed nvidia software

Now if you reboot and log back in, you can run the nvidia-settings and choose which card you want to run on. Sometimes I found restarting X worked, but other times I had to reboot as the default display manager (MDM) failed to recover with the new card.