X Error of failed request: GLXBadFBConfig (opengl 4.3 - ubuntu)

Question

I'm reading the last version of the OpenGL Programming guide and it is updated for OpenGL 4.3. The first code they go through is a really simple code to make 2 triangles and of course it is the code I use to test OpenGL on my latop (running kubuntu). The code runs but this is what happens :

X Error of failed request: GLXBadFBConfig Major opcode of failed request: 153 (GLX) Minor opcode of failed request: 34 () Serial number of failed request: 34 Current serial number in output stream: 33

RUN FINISHED; exit value 1; real time: 200ms; user: 0ms; system: 0ms

I saw that can happend if you don't have a graphic card that can handel the version of OpenGL you are using. But on my laptop I have a NVidia 555m so according to the nvidia website I'm good on that side but since I run ubuntu and NVidia are not really good with their drivers I'm sure not that my NVidia-current with bumblebee works for OpenGL 4.3.

How can I check the version supported by my setup ? Is there anyway for me to make it work or do I need to install Windows :/ ?

Solution

glxinfo is your friend. It's a command line tool which will report the version numbers and extensions supported for server side GLX, client side GLX, and OpenGL itself.

Do you have the NVIDIA binary (proprietary) driver installed? You'll need it if you want to take advantage of OpenGL versions 3 or 4. Like every software product there are occasional glitches, but over the years I think most 3D programmers / users would agree that the NVIDIA drivers for Linux have been very solid, much better than the alternatives.