switcherooctl

Launch a command on a specific GPU

TLDR

List known GPUs (default when no command is given)

$ switcherooctl

List GPUs explicitly

$ switcherooctl list

Launch a command on the first discrete GPU

$ switcherooctl launch [glxgears]

Launch a command on a specific GPU (number from list)

$ switcherooctl launch [-g|--gpu] [1] [firefox]

Print the switcheroo-control version

$ switcherooctl version

Show help for a subcommand

$ switcherooctl help launch

Start the switcheroo-control daemon

$ sudo systemctl enable --now switcheroo-control.service

SYNOPSIS

switcherooctl help [COMMAND]switcherooctl versionswitcherooctl listswitcherooctl launch [-g|**--gpu=**GPU] COMMAND_...

switcherooctl is the command-line client for switcheroo-control, a D-Bus service that discovers GPUs on hybrid-graphics Linux systems and tells desktop environments which adapters exist. GNOME and KDE use that API for menu actions such as "Launch using Discrete Graphics".list prints each adapter with a device number, whether it is the default or a discrete GPU, and the environment variables the daemon would set for that device. launch starts a process with those variables so the application renders on the chosen GPU (typically PRIME render offload: Mesa DRI_PRIME and, on NVIDIA, the vendor offload variables). It does not flip a hardware mux.The daemon is switcheroo-control.service. Without it, switcherooctl cannot enumerate GPUs. The package name is switcheroo-control; the command you type is switcherooctl.

PARAMETERS

-g, --gpu=GPU

GPU to launch on (device number from list). Applies to launch.

COMMANDS

help [COMMAND]

Print a short synopsis, or detailed help for one command.

version

Print the switcheroo-control version this CLI belongs to.

list

List known GPUs. Each entry includes a device number used with launch --gpu. This is the default command when none is given.

launch [OPTION] COMMAND...

Run COMMAND on a GPU. With no -g, the first discrete (non-default) GPU is used, or the default GPU if the system has no discrete GPU.

INSTALL

sudo apt install switcheroo-control

sudo dnf install switcheroo-control

sudo pacman -S switcheroo-control

sudo zypper install switcheroo-control

nix profile install nixpkgs#switcheroo-control

CAVEATS

Requires switcheroo-control.service to be running and a machine with more than one GPU. This is render offload, not mux switching: the display can stay on the integrated GPU while a single app uses the discrete one. Detection can mis-label adapters on unusual hardware. Wayland plus the proprietary NVIDIA driver has historically needed extra compositor and driver support; prime-run or vendor tools may still be required for some titles.

HISTORY

switcheroo-control was written by Bastien Nocera (hadess) for GNOME so desktop shells could offer discrete-GPU launch without users setting environment variables by hand. The source moved from GitHub to gitlab.freedesktop.org; the old GitHub mirror was archived in June 2020. GNOME 3.36 (2020) tightened the D-Bus API. openSUSE later recommended switcherooctl over suse-prime and Bumblebee for hybrid laptops.

RESOURCES

Source code