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Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

omgubuntu.co.uk

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Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#11

Post by Zhyl »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #7
porphyra wrote: post #4

I wish Nvidia would work nicely with Sway. I fully understand the Sway developers' dislike of Nvidia considering how hostile Nvidia was for many years. I suppose nowadays Sway should work with Nvidia but you still have to use the `--unsupported-gpu` option and enable kernel modesetting.

I had to look it up but if anyone is curious, Sway is a Wayland-based drop in replacement for i3, a tiling window manager. I always wanted to get in to i3, but traditional window managers seem to work better with my brain.

Tiling window managers are a different way of thinking about how one uses a computer, similar to how different touch interfaces are, but in the other more keyboardly direction.

I find I reach for a tiling WM (or tmux) when I have a lot of terminal tasks I need to do and being able to quickly summon, dismiss and rearrange windows visibly is more important than their placement.

As with everything else, everyone has their preferences and each paradigm has its strengths, weaknesses and natural use cases.

Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#12

Post by jadbox »

Zhyl wrote: post #11
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to look it up but if anyone is curious, Sway is a Wayland-based drop in replacement for i3, a tiling window manager. I always wanted to get in to i3, but traditional window managers seem to work better with my brain.

Tiling window managers are a different way of thinking about how one uses a computer, similar to how different touch interfaces are, but in the other more keyboardly direction. I find I reach for a tiling WM (or tmux) when I have a lot of terminal tasks I need to do and being able to quickly summon, dismiss and rearrange windows visibly is more important than their placement. As with everything else, everyone has the…

See 3mux for terminal i3 like tiling https://github.com/aaronjanse/3mux

Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#13

Post by jwells89 »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #7
porphyra wrote: post #4

I wish Nvidia would work nicely with Sway. I fully understand the Sway developers' dislike of Nvidia considering how hostile Nvidia was for many years. I suppose nowadays Sway should work with Nvidia but you still have to use the `--unsupported-gpu` option and enable kernel modesetting.

I had to look it up but if anyone is curious, Sway is a Wayland-based drop in replacement for i3, a tiling window manager. I always wanted to get in to i3, but traditional window managers seem to work better with my brain.

Count me in with the group that’s not been able to find the appeal in tiling WMs. For more automatic setups I find myself “fighting” them a lot, and for manual setups I’m micromanaging windows much more than I do with a typical floating WM.

My preferred setup is a floating WM with dual monitors, with each monitor’s virtual desktops being fully independent (so switching one doesn’t switch the other), which allows using the desktops to create “windowsets” that can quickly be switched between. This is by far the least micro-managey arrangment I’ve used, with windows rarely being moved or resized once set up. Practically zero mental overhead, it’s very nice.

Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#14

Post by nequo »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #7
porphyra wrote: post #4

I wish Nvidia would work nicely with Sway. I fully understand the Sway developers' dislike of Nvidia considering how hostile Nvidia was for many years. I suppose nowadays Sway should work with Nvidia but you still have to use the `--unsupported-gpu` option and enable kernel modesetting.

I had to look it up but if anyone is curious, Sway is a Wayland-based drop in replacement for i3, a tiling window manager. I always wanted to get in to i3, but traditional window managers seem to work better with my brain.

> traditional window managers seem to work better with my brain.

My final push came from Gnome (on X11) randomly messing up Alt+Tab so that each time it would start cycling from an arbitrary window rather than the current one, only fixable by logging out and logging in again. Also annoying: with an external monitor, windows sometimes jump between monitors after suspend and resume for no clear reason.

No such issues with Sway at all. Overall, I found the switch very worthwhile.

Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#15

Post by aeyes »

This week I tried Wayland with Nvidia again on Arch and it was terrible, I experienced lag, bad performance and weird glitches like a jumping cursor.

I admit that I only played with this for an hour or so. Maybe I didn't do some of the necessary configs to get a good experience, I just followed the Arch wiki instructions.

I hope it's better on Ubuntu.

Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#16

Post by __s »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #7
porphyra wrote: post #4

I wish Nvidia would work nicely with Sway. I fully understand the Sway developers' dislike of Nvidia considering how hostile Nvidia was for many years. I suppose nowadays Sway should work with Nvidia but you still have to use the `--unsupported-gpu` option and enable kernel modesetting.

I had to look it up but if anyone is curious, Sway is a Wayland-based drop in replacement for i3, a tiling window manager. I always wanted to get in to i3, but traditional window managers seem to work better with my brain.

I use sway. Virtual desktop per application. Replace file manager with terminal. Use tmux. Use vim

Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#17

Post by KingMachiavelli »

Good, it's been long enough for GPU manufacturers to ensure proper Wayland support and with the exception of EOL Nvidia cards (Kepler and older I think), everything mostly works on Wayland. wlroots + Nvidia still has some issues like flickering but AFAIK that's mostly been solved.

The issue with popular distro's like Ubuntu defaulting to X11 for certain hardware is it allows companies like Nvidia to de-prioritize Wayland support. Even in the best case, Nvidia's Linux docs are still written assuming Ubuntu + Xorg which is very unhelpful.

I bet we'll finally see proper Wayland-focused documentation and more Wayland compatibility updates from Nvidia within a year or two just because Ubuntu changes the default.

Re: Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia Users

#18

Post by KingMachiavelli »

aeyes wrote: post #15

This week I tried Wayland with Nvidia again on Arch and it was terrible, I experienced lag, bad performance and weird glitches like a jumping cursor. I admit that I only played with this for an hour or so. Maybe I didn't do some of the necessary configs to get a good experience, I just followed the Arch wiki instructions. I hope it's better on Ubuntu.

Which card and desktop environment? The only bug I still experience is occasional desktop flickering.

TBH Archlinux and NixOS have the easiest Nvidia experience because IIRC I think Ubuntu still defaults to Nouveau?

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