Bumblebee Overview

This page tries to establish a design for Bumblebee. It's aimed at developers. Developers are encouraged to discuss the points below.

Installation

The installation is distinct from configuration because it has to be executed only once.

clean the mess named bumblebee-enablecard and other unremoved files (a seperate script)
uninstall previous Bumblebee versions
~~display driver installation (currently nvidia, nouveau as option for the future)~~
check for dependencies, but do not install these: virtualgl; nvidia (in the future: nvidia or nouveau at your choice)
(Ubuntu, possibly others?) to avoid breaking the Intel display, set the default GL lib to Mesa
setup initscript that starts the daemon (bumblebee -d)
add a group which is allowed to use bumblebee and instruct users to add themselves to it (XXX: do we need to add users from a certain group to it?)
~~(old approach) add user to sudoers to allow enabling/disabling the X server using the initscript~~

Xorg settings (these should propably be moved to Installation, at leas):
~~ConnectedMonitor setting, known values: CRT-0, DFP-0~~ ConnectedMonitor "DFP,CRT" works fine
BusID setting, should be the PCI Bus ID of the nVidia card

We should allow for unattended installations and choose sensible defaults.

VGL preferences (see also User's Guide for VirtualGL: 19 Advanced configuration)
VGL_COMPRESS sets the compression method for framestransport possible values: yuv, jpeg, proxy (VGL default), xv (BB default), rgb
VGL_DISPLAY sets the X display to be used (this display is started by Bumblebee)
VGL_READBACK - "Specify the method used by VirtualGL to read back the 3D pixels from the 3D graphics hardware" (???)
VGL_LOG - set to /dev/null to discard all VGL messages, an empty value should default to outputting to stderr
Bumblebee-specific stuff:
ECO_MODE - if not connected to a power supply, new programs do not use the nvidia card when ECO_MODE is set to 1.

should start X server on request
- Use a single X server for now, see issue 8
Communication is made through a named pipe, current commands are "start" (start X), other commands cause the daemon to check whether the X server needs to be shut down
enable/disable the card (currently it loads/unloads the drivers)
load/ unload the drivers and unload any conflicting drivers
automatically shutdown X when unused for configurable seconds? (not implemented, optirun notifies the daemon when done)
initscript starts the bumblebee daemon which is located in /usr/local/sbin/bumblebee.
Options for bumblebee:
- --version - prints the version on the first line. License and credits on the next lines
- -d - this option is passed by the initscript to instruct starting a daemon
- --help shows the possible options
- --status shows whether the daemon is started or not (used in the initscript). Might be removed in the future
- If no options are passed, a informational message should be printed. Probably the possible options

/etc/bumblebee was a file in 1.7.10 and before (PPA 2.2.0 and before), containing the version number like:

Bumblebee Version: 2.2.0 Worst. Decision. Ever. From now on, we'll create a directory for storing configuration files. (/etc/bumblebee/) The version will be stored in the daemon file.
/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.$DRIVER is used when starting X