Alienware M14X BIOS Graphics Switch Option.

Did anyone could help me handing over the grub.conf file??

I'm booting with the screen freezed with the white strip on the right side and I don't want to reinstall the whole 11.04 again.

Please anyone.

Regards,

DELL, Please help us with the release of the switch for the BIOS and during the change, enable the security feature that allow me to secure with a password the boot process because that is not available right now and is good to know if the device was tampered.

Please do something.

We are waiting.

Hi,

After read over 200 Posts, i am sad. Sad because Dell don't want to do anything if i understand your post.

We need to play under linux to get better performance !!! And we want this bios option !!! We spend over 2400€ for a " Dell joke computer "

Other laptop are cheaper and they purpose this option. You are not enough good to make this option in bios menu ?

I think it will be the last time i will buy a Dell computer. You are the deception of gaming laptop.

I am oblige to running this dirty Windows to play. It's horrible for a linux user to do that. I think if nothing was doing in next months, i will put it to the trash.

Optimus is a joke.

"Dell Alienware : joke makers for gamers."

Regards,

Charles

Hi I have the same issue with my MX14 but to a severity that I couldn't even advance through the Ubuntu installer.  

Interestingly Debian 6.0 installed and runs fine on it's default graphics driver on this machine (but the resolution is capped at 1024x768) so everything looks a bit distorted.  I think perhaps the graphics load is so low in the desktop environment that an Optimus switch to the graphics card is never actually triggered.  This is fine for work (essentially this laptop's work detail is as mobile number cruncher when I want to play/watch movies I boot to Windows) but I miss the Unity bells and whistles of Ubuntu (not to mention circles actually looking circular when I make plots lol).

The odd thing is I had this exact issue with another Laptop, a Dell Latitude with a Nvidia NVS 4200M.  However there is a very simple option in the BIOS that shipped on that machine to disable Optimus then Ubuntu installed fine and I could even install the Nvidia driver (eventually) so I could rotate my 3D plots with the mouse, run multiple displays etc.

When I have some time to burn I plan to investigate the community projects for running Linux on a machines with Optimus:

Bumblebee

https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee

and

Ironhide

https://github.com/MrMEEE/ironhide

but I have a feeling they could be a huge time sink. 

As usual 'Linux is free if your time costs nothing' but hey Debian works well enough to run my work software and I've still got my Windows partition so the machine is 'functional' if not 'pleasing'.

I would NOT recommend an Alienware product to any Linux user though and feel more than a little stupid for not having turned up this issue in my research prior to purchasing my MX14 still we live and learn :)

Ok so I can still get a bash shell from which to reboot with a Ctrl Alt F1.

Then if I boot up on battery Unity loads and I can plug in the AC without incident.

Hi All,

Quick update:

ubuntu-12.04-beta2-desktop-amd64.iso

installed flawlessly and runs without incident on my M14X.

Knowing the Optimus issue exists I've not attempted to install the nVidia driver for the graphics card and the system runs fine with the default graphics driver (regardless of whether I boot on AC or battery).

There will be no use of the GPU with my current configuration but at least I can run Ubuntu on this machine at last!

I may have go at playing with Ironhide at a later date if I feel adventurous.

Cheers.

Bahaha and then on my third reboot of the night I get a black screen LOL!!! just when I thought it was all working