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.

  • heartlessevil@lemmy.one
    31·
    1 year 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
          1·
          1 year 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·
          1 year 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 bitching about things

  • INeedMana@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year 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
      2·
      1 year 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.

      • that_leaflet@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year 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
    2·
    1 year 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.

  • afb@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    Specifically with KDE and Arch, if you installed the meta package including the sddm display manager, make sure you’re using sddm-git and not the stable release (19.x I think) because the stable version of sddm doesn’t support Wayland. That could be why you’re seeing a black screen, the drivers shouldn’t be that bad. KDE is in the process of transitioning to being Wayland by default, some things are still WIP and you may have to account for that on bleeding edge distros like Arch. That’s the fun thing about Arch, not only does it not stop you from shooting yourself in the foot, it cheerfully loads the gun for you.

  • priapus@lemmy.one
    1·
    1 year 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.

  • ForynGilnith@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year 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@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year 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.

  • highduc@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year 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.

  • iloverocks@feddit.de
    1·
    1 year ago

    If gaming is your focus I would suggestedtio stick to x11 for some time. If you want to try an arch based distro I would suggested to stick with archo orendeveross. Thy are for the normal userwazy easier then pure arch.I

  • oldblackbunny@fedia.io
    1·
    1 year ago

    X11, for now. I don’t think I want to play Android games with WayDroid. I want my machine to obey my command, not the other way around.

  • madamada@reddthat.com
    0·
    1 year ago

    Last I heard of Wayland was when it was in Alpha stages. Didn’t follow up since.

    What has changed in Wayland since and how different is it to X11 ?

    • Karmatrine@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      Wayland got pretty much working as a protocol. There is still a room for improvements. But usually gnome is pretty much stable now on wayland for both Nvidia and AMD. With Nvidia it’s kinda “f around and find out” on other DE/WM with Wayland session. I could make it work on green cards but, there were issues. Flickering, memory leaks, etc. Not the most perfect experience. However with AMD everything seems in most cases to be better than x11. About difference, Wayland is basically refactored session from the core pointing in security approaches, and fixing X11 flaky behavior from it’s core.

      My personal opinion. There is no reason not to use Wayland on any GPU. Unless you need something hacky that works just because of core x11 issues.