Now I have a few questions:
- Is this a known issue with the NVIDIA proprietary drivers on hybrid GPU laptops?
Well, it's really just bad luck. If you search you most assuredly find other similar issues, even though they all likely have a different reason. But then again, you might find something similar for every possible vendor and every possible operating system (Windows included). If anything, AFAIK NVidia proprietary driver shares a lot of code with Windows driver, so presumably the problem may arise there too.
FYI, I'm in a similar boat here: my office laptop at work sporadically experiences NVidia proprietary driver crash on suspend — reported 2 weeks ago to them.
But I know a lot of users claim NVidia driver is as stable as Newton's laws on macro-scale; and you will most assuredly find similar claims for every other vendor.
Nothing is perfect, no software project in particular is bug-free.
- Has anyone resolved this kind of issue while still using NVIDIA?
Yes, people who notify upstream projects of problems have chance that the problems will be looked upon and fixed. Please refer to these instructions for issue template, and create a thread on their forum in in "Graphics/Linux" section. The most important bit is attaching a file that nvidia-bug-report.sh creates after collecting information.
Before reporting, make sure you're using the latest released driver and the problem is reproducible with it.
- Should I permanently stay on the Intel GPU and only use NVIDIA for rendering or heavy GPU tasks?
I don't think there's any reason to use NVidia for anything besides GPU-heavy tasks… I mean, non-GPU-heavy ones can be handled by Intel GPU with spending less Watts. That's the whole point of integrated GPU, handling simple office-esque tasks
Other than that, it's really for you to decide. I mean, if you can go well without NVidia GPU, then everything's fine. Otherwise might be worth investing some time into reporting the problem to them.
FWIW, Idk if you tried connecting an external monitor, but there's high chance it won't be detected without NVidia driver.
- Is there a clean way to switch between GPUs without rebooting (or do I always need to reboot)?
You can blacklist the driver, and then manually load it at runtime with sudo modprobe nvidia. But I'm not sure it's worth the hassle, especially since once it's loaded, you're most likely stuck with it, I don't think you'll be able to unload it with sudo rmmod nvidia, because it will get used by stuff.
- Any tools or best practices you’d recommend for making hybrid graphics setups more stable on Ubuntu?
It is supposed to be stable, you just got unlucky. As an end-user, there's not much you can do besides reporting the problem to the vendor.
