Acer Nitro 5 with nVidia 1050 on Linux (Ubuntu 18.04)

Acer Nitro 5 with nVidia 1050 GPU is an interesting beast.

- HDMI Output is wired to the NVIDIA chip

- Internal display wired to Intel GPU.

This is different than Optimus where both outputs are driven by the integrated GPU, and is actually more efficient since it doesn't spend system RAM bandwidth for display refresh or for copying the GPU  discrete GPU frame-buffer to the internal GPU frame-buffer when rendering using the.

So it's important that switching between using external monitor and internal laptop panel is handled gracefully.

Windows driver probably handles this automatically (though it's possible it has to be a special Acer build). It maybe even allows both GPUs to be active at the same time (Intel for internal, nVidia for external display)

But Linux nVidia driver typically works either in Optimus mode where both internal and external device is driven by Intel GPU or in traditional mode where monitor is only connected to the discrete GPU. Bumblebee project supports a more flexible setup, but is maybe a bit more difficult to configure

This is a short guide to enable switching between the either using external monitor with nVidia or Internal monitor with Intel GPU somewhat easily on Ubuntu 18.04:

First install nvidia proprietary driver :
 - apt install nvidia-driver-390 nvidia-prime
- edit /etc/default/grub so that GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line has nomodeset option eg, GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset" & run sudo update-grub
- restart machine while external HDMI monitor is connected



To switch to internal monitor:
- run sudo prime-select intel while on external monitor (or if you don't have the external monitor, Ctrl-Alt-F3 to text console and run sudo prime-select intel)
- reboot
- to enable acceleration for intel remove nomodeset from the kernel command line

To switch back to external monitor:
- run sudo prime-select nvidia
- reboot
- make sure there is nomodeset in the kernel command line

Making a shell script that does nomodeset grub switching and prime-select in a single step should be possible, and a situation where there is no nomodeset but nvidia is configured (GDM is stuck in neverending start loop) can be fixed by manually adding nomodeset in the grub menu

If you want to try a more flexible setup with Bumblebee, try these links


https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/321151/do-not-manage-to-activate-hdmi-on-a-laptop-that-has-optimus-bumblebee

https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Multi-monitor-setup

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/bumblebee#Output_wired_to_the_NVIDIA_chip