Come forse sapete, qui dai sacchibelli Linux e’ il sistema operativo prediletto. Abbiamo sperimentato varie distribuzioni, e in questa fase, sia sul portatile di Silvia che di Enrico gira una recente Linux Mint 15 (Olivia), Cinnamon Edition. Sul Toshiba U305 di Enrico tutto funziona perfettamente, mentre sul Sony Vaio VPCSB1V9E di Silvia c’era la complicazione della doppia scheda grafica (una Intel integrata HD300 e una piu’ performante ATI Radeon HD6470). Da Windows, tramite interruttore (fisico) e’ possibile cambiare la scheda video usata (Intel quando si predilige risparmiare batteria, ATI quando sono richieste performance piu’ elevate); in Linux questo switch non funziona e al piu’ e’ possibile disabilitare la scheda video integrata ATI. C’e’ un comando del kernel VGASWITCHEROO che dovrebbe permettere questo, ma non siamo riusciti a configurarlo a dovere. Pero’ i piu’ recenti driver proprietari ATI Catalyst (versione 13.4 nel nostro caso) sembrano offrire questa possibilita’ di switch (software) almeno per i sistemi muxless (come il Vaio VPCSB1V9E sembra essere). Ecco la procedura, trovata su internet e per la quale ringraziamo di cuore chi l’ha sviluppata.

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This detailed guide is taken from http://askubuntu.com/questions/205112/how-do-i-get-amd-intel-hybrid-graphics-drivers-to-work. Thanks a lot for finding the solution.
Let’s install all the required packages

• sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++6
• sudo apt-get install dkms libqtgui4 wget execstack libelfg0 dh-modaliases
• sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic xserver-xorg-core libgcc1

Being VPCSB1V9E a 64bits system, the following steps are also required:

• sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32gcc1 libc6-i386
• cd /usr ; sudo ln -svT lib /usr/lib64

The following deb packages have to be downloaded from the links

• http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu//pool/main/u/udev/libudev0_175-0ubuntu13_amd64.deb
• https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0tTaH4qTIIXdDF3NThFWUtrYlU/edit?usp=sharing

Next step consists in the removal of old intel and fglrx drivers

• sudo apt-get remove fglrx*
• sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel

and the installation of previously downloaded deb files

• sudo dpkg -i libudev*
• sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-intel_2.21.6-0ubuntu4_amd64.deb

The xserver driver have to be prevented from any upgrade with the following command

• sudo apt-mark hold xserver-xorg-video-intel

Eventually we are ready for the installation of the ATI Catalysts driver (13.4); we have to download the zip file from the official website: www.amd.com/drivers, and then run the executable to build a deb package and to install it

• sudo sh ./amd-catalyst-XX.X-linux-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/raring
• sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb

There are at the end few post-installation steps to be executed:

• sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup (if present)
• sudo aticonfig --initial -f

Then, to switch to the discrete (ATI HD6470) gpu, you need to execute the following command

• sudo aticonfig --px-dgpu

and then reboot the computer. Once started it again, it should use the ATI gpu. To switch back to the integrated one (INTEL HD3000), run the following command

• sudo aticonfig --px-igpu

and reboot again