Bumblebee got an update and Ironhide comes to real actions too!

In my last posts I told you to how we can configure Bumblebee in Linux for laptops which have Nvidia optimus enabled VGA cards. If you are not familiar with those I suggest you to go through my last post first. It will be easier to understand you what is going on.

As my last post I told you guys about what is IronHide is. It’s the same software like Bumblee for laptops which comes with ATI switchable graphics. But now the game has changed! Let’s see what are the changes has been made..

1. Bumblebee got a PPA
2. IronHide now supports for Nvidia optimus enabled cards too
3. Support for Bumblebee will stopped so soon

Let’s see.. A PPA means a source at the linux archive. Simply it means that Bumblebee is now registered in Linux main sources. As an example, if you are an Ubuntu user, you can search and find the debian and tar zipped files of Bumblebee in http://archives.ubuntu.com/ which is the original destination of all the software sources are saved. So Bumblebee got PPA. That means you can download it as the way you download others so easily via terminal. No more copy and paste commands. Just once the PPA entered to the system it will work like a charm. Lets see how it works..

If you have previously installed bumblebee remove previous installations first. For that, run these commands one by one in your terminal window..

1. wget https://raw.github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/master/cleanup
2. chmod +x cleanup
3. sudo ./cleanup

How to install –

1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable
2. sudo apt-get update
3. sudo apt-get install bumblebee

Give the password when it’s required. How to usage instructions are in the last post too. As the names of script files and directory of scripts has not been changed those commands are working on this too. So refer them :)

So other news are that Bumblebee project is going to be paused and they have added the nvidia support to the ironhide project which meant to be the support for only ATI switchable graphics. So now on you can install Ironhide instead of Bumblebee and use it. And myself it will be the best thing to as it will be the most updated source with time. As Ironhide is going to get a serious improvement Bumblebee is doomed to extinction. They won’t remove it. But they will stop the support for Bumblebee as soon as they remove the tag “BETA” from IronHide’s name :D So switch to IronHide now! But make sure you do a search if your laptop is currently supported by Ironhide or not. If not keep the Bumblebee. Always remember it’s still in beta version!

See ya later :)