I’m a seasoned Linux user, but mostly for servers and services, not really for desktop use.

I’ve dabbled in some desktop distros on my personal rig a few times in the past, but ultimately due to specific games, I’ve gone back to Windows.

I recently installed Arch and KDE. Upon initial boot I noticed it was defaulted to Wayland. Every time I would try to log in it would just go to a black screen then cycle back to the login screen. Picking X11 would bring me to the desktop.

Basic Specs:

  • AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3D
  • nVidia RTX 4090

I have been doing some reading into this and it looks like the issue is due to the proprietary nVidia drivers, but there are solutions to work around this.

I know nothing of Wayland other than its supposed to be more secure. My question is, is it worth the time/effort to get Wayland working? I primarily use my system for gaming. X11 seems to be working just fine for me right now.

Forgive me if I’m using some of the terminology wrong, still learning.

EDIT - Selling my gpu is not an option. I knew ahead of time that AMD has superior Linux support, but the 4090’s performance can’t be matched by anything AMD has. Maybe next upgrade I’ll go back to AMD if they have the top performer.

    • electroskunk@lemmy.world
      5·
      2 years ago

      Has this place officially become a true Linux community? Did we just have the first X vs Wayland thread?!

      Not until I see the GNU/Linux “interject” copypasta and someone calling MS “Micro$haft”.

  • nobloat@vlemmy.net
    14·
    2 years ago

    I love Wayland but I’m not using Nvidia. I really hope th3y figure that Nvdia stuff out soon because it’s such a roadblock to many people when it comes to Wayland

    • taj@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 years ago

      This. I haven’t had Nvidia in years. On Amd and/or Intel, ime Wayland is perfect.

    • Sentau@lemmy.one
      2·
      2 years ago

      Nvidia is the one who had things to figure out. Their poor support for GBM and closed drivers are the reason the Wayland developers have not been able to improve the experience on NVIDIA

  • heartlessevil@lemmy.one
    151·
    2 years ago

    X11 is deprecated, it’s been removed from RHEL, and hasn’t had dedicated maintainers for years. You might as well switch to Wayland (and xwayland if needed) now, it’s not really the case that you have an option.

        • sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one
          7·
          2 years ago

          Oh, I’ve followed this stuff for years and years. I’ve been using Linux pretty much exclusively for a quarter of a century. People love to harp on the security issues, but from what I’ve seen that’s pretty much theoretical. The only real compelling argument is that developers are leaning toward Wayland, so that’s the way it will go. I’m sure some day I’ll go to update and it’ll be time to make that change.

          I’m not a developer. I wasn’t super happy with the change to systemd, but it’s not like I was the one that had to deal with the init v issues, so when it changed, I went along. I’m sure the same will happen with Wayland. The last time I tried it, a lot of my decades of cruft didn’t work, shortcuts and workflow issues. Sure, I should probably clean up all that crap anyway, but like I said, it’ll happen when it happens. Until then, I’m completely happy with X11.

        • Sentau@lemmy.one
          1·
          2 years ago

          If you find your needs aren’t met by Wayland, just keep using X! We won’t be offended. I’m not trying to force you to use it. Why you heff to be mad?

          I have never seen truer words been spoken. These are words everybody should live by. Instead of this stupid infighting, we should try out things and use what works for us instead of removed about things

  • Communist@beehaw.org
    9·
    2 years ago

    I would just wait if you’re on a nvidia card, all of the problems with nvidia on wayland are nvidias fault, and they’re supposedly releasing patches to fix this, but it’s taking forever and nvidia sucks.

    If possible, sell it and get an amdgpu

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkfFvEeVC4w

    It’s honestly a good idea to just sell.

    Wayland is fundamentally better designed from the ground up, but isn’t extremely mature. Waiting is perfectly fine if you’re comfy on x11, but once wayland is the default everywhere, the linux desktop will be a significantly better experience in more ways than just security.

  • INeedMana@lemmy.world
    8·
    2 years ago

    I’m using Arch, Wayland, AMD GPU, Discord, Steam (Proton, so xWayland) for playing. I don’t remember when I switched to Wayland, might be even more than a year.

    I remember that I liked something about configuration and internal logic but mostly, for me, it just works. I don’t see much difference from purely user perspective.

    • jarredpickles87@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 years ago

      Does Wayland allow desktop/app streaming via discord natively? I remember trying to screen share in discord last year on Ubuntu and it didn’t work because of Wayland. I read that there were workarounds, but I didn’t have the time to invest in that then.

      • Leaflet@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        Nope. But there is work being done in this regard. KDE has the XWayland Video Bridge project that allows XWayland applications to see native Wayland windows. But it’s not available in stable versions of KDE yet and needs polishing.

        I don’t think audio sharing works yet either.

  • randy@lemmy.ca
    8·
    2 years ago

    In your situation, I would say to stick with X11. I’m still using X11 for gaming, but Wayland for most other things. Maybe try Wayland again in a few years. And when it’s time to buy new hardware, maybe avoid Nvidia.

    If you want to have another go at getting it working, check out what the Arch wiki says for KDE:

    If you are an NVIDIA user with the proprietary nvidia driver, also enable the DRM kernel mode setting. If that does not work, too, check the instructions on the KDE wiki.

    As for the question of security, I want to emphasize that X11 is not increasing your risk of getting hacked. If one of your applications is compromised, then X11 acts as one method by which an attacker could further their attack or extract information, but other methods would usually be easier for an attacker. You could use flatpaks or firejail to mitigate those other methods, but only after you’ve done that would Wayland provide a meaningful security benefit.

  • priapus@lemmy.one
    7·
    2 years ago

    I recommend to just use wayland unless you have a specific reason not to. The main two reasons not to are requiring global shortcuts and having an nvidia GPU that won’t play nice.

    You might just need to enable DRM KMS to get it working, in which case it may be worth using.

  • highduc
    7·
    2 years ago

    Wayland is the future. But I live in the present so I use X11 :)

    Just kidding I use Wayland on my work laptop (and maybe I should revert it to X11?! I have an issue with switching to an external monitor). I have both installed but overall I think I’ve had fewer issues with X11 than with Wayland.

    I’m hoping one day soon it’ll be amazing but until then I see everyone’s pushing for it and in my experience so far it’s not ready yet.

  • Ryan@lemmy.world
    6·
    2 years ago

    I haven’t used Nvidia since I switched to Linux 8 years ago. That’s what my computer at the time had, and it definitely influenced the hardware I chose going forward (I switched to using AMD GPU’s).

    The X11 developers have moved onto working on Wayland, and I find my computers are more performant under Wayland. However, my use-cases don’t require CUDA or anything else that Nvidia provides.

    In the end, use the tool(s) that get the job done. I’m not going to say “switch to AMD & use Wayland,” it’s not my place to do that. X11 is fine until the Wayland experience on Nvidia improves.

  • Mathieu@beehaw.org
    6·
    2 years ago

    I run Wayland on my laptop (a Framework) and it works beautifully. But I still use X11 on my desktop where I’m a heavy Zoom user. The lack of a proper support for screensharing in Zoom is the primary blocker for me.

    Wayland is great other than compatibility issues like that.

    • kixik
      1·
      2 years ago

      all electron stuff mostly doesn’t work, neither wine stuff…

      • bzImage
        1·
        2 years ago

        just learned about electron… is that thing where they glue a chrome + node.js ? that thing is bad… !!

        • kixik
          1·
          2 years ago

          yeah, it is, :( Unfortunately it’s what teams, slack, signal-desktop, jitsi, freetube, and several other desktop applications use for multi platform development (so whatever developed for the web, and android keeps working everywhere)… I think this is bad, but unavoidable if you don’t find suitable alternatives (the proprietary ones are even unavoidable if your work requires them).

  • sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one
    6·
    2 years ago

    I tried Wayland a few times and kept running into issues. I just figure at this point I’ll stick with X11 until it fades away and I don’t have a choice. I’m not a gamer though, so I can’t say much about that.

  • ForynGilnith@lemmy.world
    6·
    2 years ago

    I had many issues running Arch+Wayland+nvidia because, as a long-time i3 user, I figured that migrating to Sway would be the best choice based on so many people in the community talking about it. I tried moving over several times, every few months to see if the experience had improved but each time I got frustrated with how terrible and buggy the environment was.

    Trying out Hyprland was a complete game-changer. I’ve been running it full-time for about 2 months and it’s completely stable, supports everything I need to run, and is more efficient: the battery on my laptop lasts about 30% longer compared to my i3/picom/X11 setup.

    So yeah, I highly recommend Hyprland if you’ve tried sway in the past and didn’t get anywhere with it.

  • RandomDude
    5·
    2 years ago

    Little late to the party, but I’ll chime in. I have a 3080, and for the most part, Wayland works, but there are a few problems that keep me from using it as a daily driver. G-Sync doesn’t work at all, and when I put my PC to sleep, upon wake I end up needing to do a full reboot because of severe graphical issues. When it is running though, it’s pretty smooth, with only a few graphical issues here and there. I still daily drive X11 though until the major bugs are fixed.