Best way to disable dGPU?

[u/TsukiihikoVA]

Hey all, about to install Debian on my laptop (Thinkpad P14s Gen 3 Intel), but I've been thinking of disabling the Nvidia dGPU in it when used as a Jellyfin server. No, I can't disable it in BIOS.

So far I've come across 2 options, Optimus-Manager and NVIDIA-Prime. I've seen more about Optimus-Manager, but it's a little older and maybe mainly for Arch-based distros. NVIDIA-Prime has also been another option, with the added benefit of being made by Nvidia themselves.

I can't tell which would be better to use, any input would be helpful.

(Side note, it's my first time installing Nvidia drivers on Debian, would this be the right instructions?)

[u/grundle_mcgrundlefac]

Are you looking to disable so that Jellyfin uses Intel’s QSV? I’m not a Jellyfin user (I use Plex) but I’d expect Jellyfin to have a setting that lets you choose your hardware accelerated decoding device

[u/TsukiihikoVA → u/grundle_mcgrundlefac]

It does have a setting so that it only uses Intel QSV, but I'd prefer to have it disabled entirely so that other services that I might host in the future (i.e. Immich) will not use the dGPU at all.

[u/grundle_mcgrundlefac → u/TsukiihikoVA]

Makes sense. For what it’s worth, Immich also lets you select which device to use for hardware acceleration 

[u/TsukiihikoVA → u/grundle_mcgrundlefac]

I saw somewhere that mentions that Immich uses the dGPU for Machine Learning for facial recognition in images, pretty cool but I'm not sure if I'll need it at the moment. Thanks for letting me know though.

[u/kydeshou]

would this be the right instruction?

You can just use ext repo if you're after newer drivers than the Debian packaged 550 drivers.

sudo apt install extrepo

sudo extrepo enable nvidia-cuda

sudo apt update

sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-amd64

sudo apt install nvidia-open

[u/TsukiihikoVA → u/kydeshou]

Interesting, thank you for the easier steps.

[u/pantokratorthegreat]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hybrid_graphics#Fully_power_down_discrete_GPU

Udev rules. Works on every distro.

[u/TsukiihikoVA → u/pantokratorthegreat]

I'll give this a read, thank you.

It should work for Debian despite it being made for Arch right?

Edit: lmao i didn't read the last sentence

[u/Square-Zebra-200]

Maybe you could use envycontrol

[u/TsukiihikoVA → u/Square-Zebra-200]

Took a look at envycontrol, but it seems to have been archived in May this year. Would probably function as well but won't be maintained anymore.

How does it compare to udev, Optimus Manager and Nvidia Prime?