My end goal is to get my desktop running functionally like a high-powered Steam Deck with my HDR monitor. I’m beyond fed up with Microsoft and really want a Linux distro to be the primary OS on my PC (and ultimately the only OS once Ubisoft decides to support R6: Siege on Linux). Eventually I’ll switch from my NVIDIA GPU to AMD since everything I’ve read makes AMD out to be far more consumer and Linux friendly than NVIDIA, but in the time being I’d love some help getting this working on my current hardware.

To get KDE Plasma 6 with HDR running, so far I have tried installing the latest HoloIso and Manjaro’s official Plasma desktop stable branch. Before doing all of the below I made sure that the option to use the iGPU ports was disabled in my BIOS.

For HoloIso, I’ve followed the directions from the GitHub readme file and installed from a USB drive to one of my internal 1 TB SSDs. I’m able to boot from the ISO on the USB drive and run the installation tool in HoloIso. The installation seemingly runs successfully and tells me to restart. After restarting and booting into that drive, I see the GRUB menu which disappears quickly, and then I see nothing but a black screen. I have tried booting with both of my monitors connected to my GPU via DisplayPort, and booting with only one monitor connected to my GPU via DisplayPort. Neither seems to solve the issue.

I then went on to try what seemed like a more stable distro that was similar to SteamOS - Manjaro with Plasma. Installation went smoothly and I was able to actually boot into Manjaro after installation. Noticing there was no HDR option in the display settings I did some Googling and found that I was using X11 and not Wayland (which is where the HDR support lies). I did some more Googling and found a guide to switch to Wayland (I can’t find the guide again now dangit) but upon doing so and restarting, all I saw was a black screen.

Honestly, if anyone has any suggestions for what to try I would love some help. I’m familiar with navigating Linux but relatively unfamiliar with installing it and VERY unfamiliar with display technologies so any suggestions for what to try are appreciated.

  • Virkkunen
    2•5 months ago

    Running endeavourOS with a 3080 and Plasma since 5.25 (on 6.1.2 now). Never ran x11 and I don’t intend to ever again. My experience is mixed, so to say. There are a few things keeping me on Windows but (very) slowly I’m getting there.

    About HDR. I didn’t need to do anything extra to get it enabled on my desktop, simply toggling it on settings works.=, and I can also get mpv to work with some tweaks so I can watch films. On games I would need gamescope to run it, but that comes with a set of issues like not having Steam Overlay and Input, so for HDR games I run them on gamescope without overlay, and every other game I just run them normally. I also have a lengthy writeup on trying to get gamescope to run with the Steam overlay, but ultimately it’s one or the other right now.

    On NVIDIA drivers, for me the 555 and explicit sync patches have made things worse. I never had issues with things flickering on 550 except for Electron apps, which would flicker and have awful input lag, but that’s easily fixed by setting ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=wayland on my /etc/environment. The issue with 555 drivers is that there are some VRAM leaks happening. They fill ridiculously fast, even just dragging a window will make kwin use 2GB of VRAM. Since there is no shared VRAM at all on NVIDIA Linux, as soon as I hit my 10GB cap, Xwayland will crash along my game and Steam, and sometimes my desktop too. On 550, I would only get framedrops for a while. I should also note that the proprietary and open drivers have no difference at all for me, and enabling or disabling GSP firmware also has no difference.

    Lastly, VRR. It will not work at all if you have more than one monitor connected and enabled on your NVIDIA card. A workaround if you have a second GPU (or your CPU’s iGPU) is to plug your extra monitors there, and then VRR will work on your main screen. A second option would be to disable your extra monitors anytime you would play a game, but that’s not ideal at all.