That is why I sympathize with Linus here. I'm also very upset with nVidia over Optimus, but on Windows, for reasons I've mentioned in other comments. Optimus really just seems like an afterthought to nVidia. As long as it switches GPUs when the PC goes into energy-conserving mode, they think it's working just fine.
That's a typical hardware company's response - deliver only half-baked functionality and leave the debugging to platform integrators. Nvidia reaps the marketing bonus points. Laptop companies have to put in the time to actually get the power savings.
Still, I don't think many people were aware that Linux wasn't (ever * ) going to work on Optimus laptops and notebooks - and Linus' comments have helped raise awareness of the issue.
