HOWTO : nVidia Optimus on Back|Track 5 r3

(A) Hardware (nVidia Optimus)



Brand : Asus n82jv-vx072v

CPU : Intel i5 450M, 2.4Ghz

RAM : 4096MB DDR3 1066

Display card : nVidia GeForce GT335M 1G VRAM DDR3



(B) Hardware (nVidia GeForce)



Any computer comes with nVidia GeForce display card that is CUDA capable.



Problem



You will be experienced to get a black screen when boot up and you cannot go further to get the Back|Track to be installed. This tutorial not only apply for Back|Track but also apply for other Linux distributions.



Solution



Step 1 :



When bootup in the "Boot Option Menu", press "Tab" (Other version of Linux will be different) and append the following to the end of the kernel option line :



text splash vga=791 i915.modeset=1 nomodeset



*** Remarks : "i915.modeset=1 nomodest" is for Optimus only. If nVidia GeForce, just need "nomodeset".



Step 2 :



Once booted up and installed, do not restart and continue to test. Mount up the hard drive and you need to edit as the following :



nano /etc/default/grub



Locate 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text splash vga=791"' and append the following :



text splash vga=791 i915.modeset=1 nomodeset



and it will be looking like this :



GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text splash vga=791 i915.modeset=1 nomodeset"



update-grub



The following command is for Back|Track only.



fix-splash



Step 3 :



Reboot your computer.



Step 4 (If you do Step 4a, DO NOT do this step, skip it.) :



Not to run "startx". This step should be running without X. For other Linux distributions, press "Alt + F2" to console mode.



Download CUDA 5.0 for 64-bit :



wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run



Download CUDA 5.0 for 32-bit :



wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run



chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run



or



chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run



Then run the following command.



./cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run



or



./cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run



Answer "accept" and install nVidia driver (current version is 304.54) as well as nVidia CUDA Toolkit (current is 5.0.35). If you want to install samples, please do. When asking for the path or directory, please press enter to accept the default setting.



Remarks : Please note that CUDA has an updated version.



Step 4a (Don't do with Step 4 together, only one of it) :



Not to run "startx". This step should be running without X. For other Linux distributions, press "Alt + F2" to console mode.



add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates



Edit : The x-swat ppa does not work anymore. Use Back|Track repos instead. Just do the following commands only.



apt-get update

apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-current-modaliases nvidia-settings



Your nVidia driver has been installed (current version is 304.60).



Download CUDA 5.0 for 64-bit :



wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run



Download CUDA 5.0 for 32-bit :



wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/5_0/rel/installers/cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run



chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run



or



chmod +x cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run



Then run the following command.



./cuda_5.0.35_linux_64_ubuntu10.04.run



or



./cuda_5.0.35_linux_32_ubuntu10.04.run



Answer "accept" and DO NOT install nVidia driver. Only install nVidia CUDA Toolkit (current is 5.0.35). If you want to install samples, please do. When asking for the path or directory, please press enter to accept the default setting.



Remarks : Please note that CUDA has an updated version.



Step 5 :



The below is for Back|Track only. If other Linux distributions, please replace "root" with any username.



nano /root/.bashrc



Append the following :



PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/cuda-5.0/bin

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib:/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib64:/lib

export PATH

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH



Or, you can do the following instead for any Linux distributions.



nano /etc/ld.so.conf.d/cuda.conf



/usr/local/cuda-5.0/bin

/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib

/usr/local/cuda-5.0/lib64



Save and then run the following command :



ldconfig



Then, reboot.



Step 6 : (For nVidia Optimus only)



To install Bumblebee :



sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable



sudo apt-get update



sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia



Then, reboot the box.



Step 7 : (For nVidia Optimus only)



To test it to see if nVidia driver is workable or not :



glxspheres



optirun glxspheres



Step 8 : (Optional)



Go to the official site of pyrit.



http://code.google.com/p/pyrit/downloads/list



Download pyrit and cpyrit-cuda (the current version is 0.4.0 at the time of this writing). Back|Track 5 r3 may installed pyrit but not for the CUDA.



tar -xzvf pyrit-0.4.0.tar.gz

cd pyrit-0.4.0

python setup.py build

python setup.py install



tar -xzvf cpyrit-cuda-0.4.0.tar.gz

cd cpyrit-cuda-0.4.0

python setup.py build

python setup.py install



To test if the installation is correct or not. If you are not using Optimus, the "optirun" is not required.



optirun pyrit list_cores

optirun pyrit benchmark

optirun pyrit benchmark_long



Finally, thank you for Malko to test it and confirm it is working.



That's all! See you.