14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical has just made available for the Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) users a new NVIDIA Prime package, which should prove very useful for laptop owners.
NVIDIA Prime is a piece of software that is integrated by default in the Nouveau driver and that is used with NVIDIA Optimus technology to manage dual Intel and NVIDIA GPUs.
Some laptops feature both an Intel and an NVIDIA GPU, but switching between them can be a hassle. This is done much easier with Nvidia Prime, and now it has been integrated into Ubuntu 14.04.
According to the information posted in the PPA, only laptops with NVIDIA Optimus hardware and NVIDIA driver which is at least at version 319.x are supported.
Also, a prime-select switcher has been added to switch between the integrated and the discrete GPU. This allows users to disable the discrete GPU to save power. Users' settings are now saved and applied on log out and on boot.
You won't have to do anything special to get this functionality, just upgrade the system.