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.

  • Communist
    5•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.