Questions about Wayland support with Nvidia&KDE

[Kenobiwan]

I was hoping someone could fill me in on the state of Wayland support with Nvidia hardware, with the desktop environment that I'm using being KDE. As far as hardware goes, my cpu is AMD (5800x) and my gpu is a 3080 ti. At some point in the coming years I do plan on going with an AMD gpu, currently tho it'd be a major waste to replace my current gpu. The distribution I'm using is EndeavourOS (and ArcoLinux on a second pc of mine).

Whenever I try searching around online, the majority of topics I've found through google are several months old, or from 2021, and I was hoping for more up to date info on this, cause I know things have changed over this past year, I just don't know by how much.

First question being can I use Wayland with my Nvidia gpu, and if so how does it perform? Secondly, is it possible to use Nvidia + Wayland with KDE? That being the only desktop environment that I like of all the ones I've used. On both my EndeavourOS & ArcoLinux pcs they don't give me the option to switch to Wayland, but I have run Fedora and PopOS in the past on these machines, and if I remember correctly I'm pretty sure even after installing and switching to KDE on those distros I was still presented with the option of switching between X11 & Wayland. If I had to take a guess, maybe because those distros ship by default with Gnome (gnome based in the case of the Cosmic DE), is Gnome software needed to be able to use Wayland + Nvidia with KDE? I am using SDDM on both my machines currently, so could it just be a case of me needing to use a different display manager?

I know in the past when I did try using Wayland with KDE things were finicky, but that was several months ago. Another issue I had (don't know if it's by design or something I wasn't doing right) is that the Nvidia Settings application wouldn't show all the settings like it does when I use X11, with settings like forcing composition pipeline being things I'd normally enable, as well as Gsync which is definitely important for me to enable, but those options I don't recall even being there. Is it just a case where all that's enabled by default with Wayland, and no tweaks required?

 

[KGIII]

It should work, but you might find some bugs. The folks at KDE do not consider it "Wayland-ready" AFAICR.

You can try it. I would. I'd try starting with Kubuntu. After installation, run the following:

sudo apt install plasma-workspace-wayland

Then you'll need to reboot. You might have to select Wayland at the login screen, I'm not sure - 'cause I don't use Wayland on KDE and haven't actually tried this.

 

[Kenobiwan]

It should work, but you might find some bugs. The folks at KDE do not consider it "Wayland-ready" AFAICR.

You can try it. I would. I'd try starting with Kubuntu. After installation, run the following:

sudo apt install plasma-workspace-wayland

Then you'll need to reboot. You might have to select Wayland at the login screen, I'm not sure - 'cause I don't use Wayland on KDE and haven't actually tried this.

In that case I'll probably hold off, and wait for it to be in a more polished state. I'm very happy with my desktops as they are, with Arch being a platform I have much stronger preference for than Debian based ones.

On a non-gaming modern laptop I have (released this year or last) I use KDE Neon on, with non-gaming pcs being the only ones I don't mind running something Debian/Ubuntu based on. That laptop has an intel cpu with integrated graphics, and I haven't experienced any problems with Wayland on that machine. Though if I understand correctly that's only because AMD & Intel based systems play much better with Wayland than Nvidia.

 

[KGIII]

It makes sense to wait until KDE says they're Wayland ready.

Wayland is a giant, monolithic application that has been developed for a long time already. It's slow moving, so very slow moving...

BUT...

It's going to do good things, hopefully.

 

[Kenobiwan]

It makes sense to wait until KDE says they're Wayland ready.

Wayland is a giant, monolithic application that has been developed for a long time already. It's slow moving, so very slow moving...

BUT...

It's going to do good things, hopefully.

Definitely hope it comes sooner rather than later. It's not gonna kill me to keep using x11 obviously, but Wayland is just so much smoother when it comes to handling windows.

 

[digitaltrails]

It makes sense to wait until KDE says they're Wayland ready.

Wayland is a giant, monolithic application that has been developed for a long time already. It's slow moving, so very slow moving...

BUT...

It's going to do good things, hopefully.

I think it's more of an issue that Wayland is only a protocol specification and that there are multiple implementations in various states of usability. Moving all desktops to Wayland is a case of several groups all implementing the same or similar wheel (all the while the specs of the wheel continue to be refined).

The gnome implementation leads the way, but prioritises its own needs. KDE's completely separate implementation has to deal with KDE requirements that seem beyond what the gnome requires.

There have been attempts to share code. For example, KWinFT is a separate attempt to implement KDE kwin for Wayland (and X11). KWinFT is built using wlroots, wlroots is a modular Wayland-implementation construction-set, see wlroots in KWinFT. This sounds like a good technical approach, but I'm not sure it's winning friends and influencing people in the KDE camp.

If it's up to date, KDE's current list of showstoppers isn't super long, but it might keep them busy for a while. I think session save/restore is still not implemented (perhaps it's tricky within an environment that attempts to be more secure).

I keep a separate KDE-Wayland test login and periodically login and sample progress. It does appear that Plasma 5.26 is pretty usable and stable (on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with nvidia's 525.60 driver). Big issues (for me) such as defining the primary-display and fractional-scaling have now been resolved. KDE under Wayland does seem snappier, window-wise, but no so much that I'm in any hurry to switch over.

It might be an issue that the Wayland protocol is still lacking/evolving in places. For example, I read in the past that no one important has considered color management to be a priority - I would have thought that would be fundamental to a serious desktop.

 

[Kenobiwan]

I think it's more of an issue that Wayland is only a protocol specification and that there are multiple implementations in various states of usability. Moving all desktops to Wayland is a case of several groups all implementing the same or similar wheel (all the while the specs of the wheel continue to be refined).

The gnome implementation leads the way, but prioritises its own needs. KDE's completely separate implementation has to deal with KDE requirements that seem beyond what the gnome requires.

There have been attempts to share code. For example, KWinFT is a separate attempt to implement KDE kwin for Wayland (and X11). KWinFT is built using wlroots, wlroots is a modular Wayland-implementation construction-set, see wlroots in KWinFT. This sounds like a good technical approach, but I'm not sure it's winning friends and influencing people in the KDE camp.

If it's up to date, KDE's current list of showstoppers isn't super long, but it might keep them busy for a while. I think session save/restore is still not implemented (perhaps it's tricky within an environment that attempts to be more secure).

I keep a separate KDE-Wayland test login and periodically login and sample progress. It does appear that Plasma 5.26 is pretty usable and stable (on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with nvidia's 525.60 driver). Big issues (for me) such as defining the primary-display and fractional-scaling have now been resolved. KDE under Wayland does seem snappier, window-wise, but no so much that I'm in any hurry to switch over.

It might be an issue that the Wayland protocol is still lacking/evolving in places. For example, I read in the past that no one important has considered color management to be a priority - I would have thought that would be fundamental to a serious desktop.

When it comes to things like enabling Gsync, is that required under Wayland or is it enabled by default? Cause when I have tried using KDE Wayland w/Nvidia in the past that wasn't something it gave me the option to enable, or at least I don't recall seeing it as an option. Honestly things would be simpler if I was using an AMD gpu, but my 6900 xt shit the bed earlier this year, after just a few months of use, with it even taking that motherboard with it. Sapphire did me dirty as far as RMA goes, where 3 times I've sent it back because it still doesn't work, with them sending it right back to me. I guess their strat was to get me to keep wasting money on shipping until I gave up. That was my first ever AMD gpu, so that left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, which is why I'm not ready to go back to them anytime soon.

 

[wizardfromoz]

@Kenobiwan G'day and welcome to linux.org

I don't have the answers on Wayland, don't use it, but I would advocate simply installing Timeshift on the distros concerned, take current snapshots, and then run Wayland experiments. You can always rollback if something goes wrong.

Make sure you store your snapshots on separate storage.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[digitaltrails]

When it comes to things like enabling Gsync, is that required under Wayland or is it enabled by default? Cause when I have tried using KDE Wayland w/Nvidia in the past that wasn't something it gave me the option to enable, or at least I don't recall seeing it as an option. Honestly things would be simpler if I was using an AMD gpu, but my 6900 xt shit the bed earlier this year, after just a few months of use, with it even taking that motherboard with it. Sapphire did me dirty as far as RMA goes, where 3 times I've sent it back because it still doesn't work, with them sending it right back to me. I guess their strat was to get me to keep wasting money on shipping until I gave up. That was my first ever AMD gpu, so that left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, which is why I'm not ready to go back to them anytime soon.

I have limited experience of trying to get one game running OK under Linux (IL-2 BOS flight combat sim). I've found that only a lot of Googling and trial and error resulted in any progress. Often the arch wiki is a good place to start, for example, in respect to gsync, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variable_refresh_rate.

When gaming I've eliminated Wayland and KDE issues by not using them. I have gdm set to offer logins to KDE-Wayland, KDE-X11, and openbox-X11. When gaming, I logout of KDE-X11, and login to openbox-X11. The minimal environment removes all issues related to the desktop, compositors, background tasks, and other stuff I'm unaware of. The responsiveness and rendering is noticeably superior.

Gaming is off the beaten track, the number of Linux gamers is quite low. Different desktops, different hardware, outdated info, you have to pick the advice appart and guess your own way forward.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I run the Fedora KDE Spin and have an Nvidia graphics card. My wayland session works fine with every day work and all my Steam games. The only two things that don't work in a Wayland session Game streaming to Steam Link from my Nvidia Shield and screen-sharing with Microsoft Teams. I don't like switching between session so until those two work with Wayland I will be continiuing to use Xorg.

 

[Kenobiwan]

I run the Fedora KDE Spin and have an Nvidia graphics card. My wayland session works fine with every day work and all my Steam games. The only two things that don't work in a Wayland session Game streaming to Steam Link from my Nvidia Shield and screen-sharing with Microsoft Teams. I don't like switching between session so until those two work with Wayland I will be continiuing to use Xorg.

I installed plasma-wayland-session and gave it a shot, and it was insanely buggy. All my windows would keep flickering, and even randomly becoming transparent for a second until I clicked on them. I did a reboot to see if it was something that would clear up after one of those, but sadly the problem didn't go away. Definitely gonna stick with X11 for the foreseeable future. I'd still like to be able to use Wayland at some point, but it probably won't be while using my Nvidia gpu.

 

[digitaltrails]

I installed plasma-wayland-session and gave it a shot, and it was insanely buggy. All my windows would keep flickering, and even randomly becoming transparent for a second until I clicked on them. I did a reboot to see if it was something that would clear up after one of those, but sadly the problem didn't go away. Definitely gonna stick with X11 for the foreseeable future. I'd still like to be able to use Wayland at some point, but it probably won't be while using my Nvidia gpu.

With the latest 525.60 driver and the latest KDE Plasma 5.26, with a GTX 1650 Super, it seems OK, but I didn't sit in it all day, I've just kicked the tires.

It may not work with older Nvidia 400 series drivers (or earlier 500's either). Once Nvidia stepped away from EGLStreams, the KDE folk abandoned EGLStreams almost immediately. After an Tumbleweed update I found KWin-Wayland stopped working, I was forced to move to the 500 series drivers. Perhaps Nvidia will be backporting, don't know.

I don't see any compelling reason to move away from X11, but I have tried out all aspects of my normal desktop setup and confirmed that I could cut across if I had to. The only aspect I'm waiting on (and it's a biggie), is application restore on login and preservation on logout.

I haven't tried KDE with Steam Proton under Wayland, I guess that's one to try. The only Steam Proton game I play, is IL-2 BOS. I find to be a bit fragile, so perhaps I'll avoid tempting fate for now.