Solved Are we Nvidia users cursed if we want to use a wayland window manager?

[CaffeineAddict]

I'm considering to dump KDE and use wayland window manager because I want stability and responsive desktop.
But these notes on 2 of the candidates I'm considering are very discouraging:

Hyprland

Note

NVIDIA GPUs are often not usable out-of-the-box, follow the Nvidia page after installingHyprland if you plan to use one. Blame NVIDIA for this.

https://wiki.hypr.land/Getting-Started/Installation/

Sway

NVIDIA Users​

Sway works best with open-source graphics drivers. The Nvidia proprietary driver isn't officially supported here—but the open-source Nouveau driver is a solid alternative if you're team Nvidia! Please don't ask questions about the Nvidia proprietary driver in this space. If you have a choice of hardware, keep open source support in mind.

Home

i3-compatible Wayland compositor. Contribute to swaywm/sway development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

It sucks, it forces me to consider X11 manager but I'd like to avoid X11 and start using wayland

I know configuring/ricing a wm will take days if not weeks, I don't want to waste time only to figure out later something doesn't work.

 

[Fae3iSUx]

stop using Nvidia then. I use Radeon on Wayland, X11, KDE and the like, never had any problems. Drivers are open source and available for every kernel.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I can't simply stop using Nvidia, my GPU is recently bought, it works without any issues, I play games too.
Nvidia GPU's are my favorite, I'm using Nvidia GPU's since very long time. Only my first laptop had ATI that burned out.

There are open source Nvidia drivers as well so their excuse to blame Nvidia makes no sense to me.

 

[Fae3iSUx]

I can't simply stop using Nvidia, my GPU is recently bought, it works without any issues, I play games too.
Nvidia GPU's are my favorite, I'm using Nvidia GPU's since very long time. Only my first laptop had ATI that burned out.

There are open source Nvidia drivers as well so their excuse to blame Nvidia makes no sense to me.

I play all kind of games on my Radeon too. Including modern titles like Cyberpunk or Diablo 4. No problems at all.

Treat your recent Nvidia purchase as lesson learned.

Simpl put:
buy Radeon -> no problems
buy Nvidia -> possible problems, and unnecessary hassle.

 

[f33dm3bits]

https://wiki.hypr.land/Getting-Started/Installation/

I used Hyprland with Nvidia(5080), it works fine never had issues. I'm currently using Niri with and Nvidia gpu and also zero issues. Which Nvidia gpu do you have?

I know configuring/ricing a wm will take days if not weeks, I don't want to waste time only to figure out later something doesn't work.

No need to spend days on ricing if you use Noctalia Shell Dank Material Shell, they provide a graphical settings menu for you to change around settings.

Overview

Noctalia documentation and guides.

docs.noctalia.dev

Welcome | Dank Linux

Welcome to Dank Linux

danklinux.com

I use Noctalia.

Treat your recent Nvidia purchase as lesson learned.

Simpl put:
buy Radeon -> no problems
buy Nvidia -> possible problems, and unnecessary hassle.

I had more issues with my last Radeon gpu on Linux than I ever had with any Nvidia gpu on Linux.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Which Nvidia gpu do you have?

GTX 1660

I used Hyprland with Nvidia(5080), it works fine never had issues.

That's what I assumed, it will most likely work if it works with regular DE now, I'll play with it soon.

Noctalia Shell Dank Material Shell

Thanks for this but I still prefer manual work
We'll see how it turns out, not yet sure which WM to choose.
[putting my self to work]

 

[f33dm3bits]

I used Hyprland with Nvidia(5080), it works fine never had issues. I'm currently using Niri with and Nvidia gpu and also zero issues. Which Nvidia gpu do you have?

Do know that I use Arch Linux and if I remember correctly Hyprland isn't in the Debian repos yet and neither is Niri, so that would mean you would have to compile whatever you use yourself unless you decide to try
to use Sway.

Thanks for this but I still prefer manual work

Configuring Waybar is a pain, if you like how you configure KDE Plasma now you will be less annoyed with either Noctalia or Dank than with Waybar.

GTX 1660

If that gpu supports the 590/595 drivers then you will have all the Wayland fixes.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Do know that I use Arch Linux and if I remember correctly Hyprland isn't in the Debian repos yet and neither is Niri, so that would mean you would have to compile whatever you use yourself unless you decide to try
to use Sway.

Good to know, didn't think about that yet.

I really like i3 for being lightweight and the rest, it's in Debian repo but not wayland.

If that gpu supports the 590/595 drivers then you will have all the Wayland fixes.

I'm out of date here but it does support it and driver is available:

nvidia-smi
Mon May 11 12:01:41 2026
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.126.18 Driver Version: 580.126.18 CUDA Version: 13.0 |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

Current graphics driver releases

Current releases Current production branch release: 595.71.05 (x86_64 / aarch64) Current new feature branch release: 590.48.01 (x86_64 / aarch64) Current beta release: 595.45.04 (x86_64 / aarch64) Legacy releases 580.159.03 (x86_64 / aarch64) - Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs 470.239.06...

forums.developer.nvidia.com

 

[f33dm3bits]

I'm out of date here but it does support it and driver is available:

Current graphics driver releases

Current releases Current production branch release: 595.71.05 (x86_64 / aarch64) Current new feature branch release: 590.48.01 (x86_64 / aarch64) Current beta release: 595.45.04 (x86_64 / aarch64) Legacy releases 580.159.03 (x86_64 / aarch64) - Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs 470.239.06...

forums.developer.nvidia.com

Your gpu supports the 595 driver.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/267223 -> Supported Products -> GeForce 16 Series

 

[f33dm3bits]

I really like i3 for being lightweight and the rest, it's in Debian repo but not wayland.

Sway with Nvidia Tutorial

Maybe there are some people that want to try sway with the official Nvidia driver, so I thought I’ll just write down my experience and what I did. Be aware that you could potentially mess things up, so proceed with that in mind. I’ve been running sway on Nvidia for like a week on my arch...

forum.endeavouros.com

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Sway's notice that official driver is not supported makes me not want to use it.
However I believe they'll change their hardcoded mind sometime in the future.

Since sway is i3 compatible config-wise, and that's what I want, I'll go with i3, and when sway devs make changes, I can simply copy over my config to sway without any additional effort.

I can even copy it for testing purposes now but I'll be making my config with i3 just to get the feeling of WM.

I appreciate help so far.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Sway with Nvidia Tutorial

Maybe there are some people that want to try sway with the official Nvidia driver, so I thought I’ll just write down my experience and what I did. Be aware that you could potentially mess things up, so proceed with that in mind. I’ve been running sway on Nvidia for like a week on my arch...

forum.endeavouros.com

Also this:

This is just a direction on what you have to do in order to get sway somewhat working with an Nvidia GPU, if you want to use the official driver. But keep in mind the sway developers will not support the official closed source Nvidia and if you are having problems, they may never be fixed.

They must be still living in times when Nvidia was still closed sourced.

 

[f33dm3bits]

They must be still living in times when Nvidia was still closed sourced.

Yeah that topic was from several years ago but, most of it besides that is probably still relevant.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@f33dm3bits :-

Your gpu supports the 595 driver.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/267223 -> Supported Products -> GeForce 16 Series

????? You sure about that, Maarten?

Hm. I was under the impression that support for Pascal had been dropped across the board. Have they made exceptions for certain GPUs in that family, then?

My GT 1030 is supported only as far the 580-series.


Mike.

 

[f33dm3bits]

????? You sure about that, Maarten?

Yes 10 series and 16 series are seen as different gpu's, check under supported products in the link I shared. I thought the same a while back until someone mentioned it to me.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Yeah that topic was from several years ago but, most of it besides that is probably still relevant.

Sorry I was referring to sway devs, not to article writer, it is them who live in the past.

My GT 1030 is supported only as far the 580-series.

Unfortunately yes, it's listed as legacy driver in my link.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Unfortunately yes, it's listed as legacy driver in my link.

16 series have support for the 595 driver, it's listed under supported products when you check the current driver.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

16 series have support for the 595 driver, it's listed under supported products when you check the current driver.

Yes I know, but Mike's 1030 isn't

 

[Fae3iSUx]

.

I had more issues with my last Radeon gpu on Linux than I ever had with any Nvidia gpu on Linux.

I guess it was old times before current modern radeon driver? All newer radeons have been in "fixed" state in last 10 years or so
I had problems with Nvidia in the past, because it always needed proprietary DKMS driver, causing issues. I guess that's still the case, because open source driver is not good enough yet.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I guess it was old times before current modern radeon driver? All newer radeons have been in "fixed" state in last 10 years or so

No it was with an RX 7900XTX , a kernel regression caused issues and no work around worked and after six months it wasn't fixed yet in the AMD GPU kernel driver. Issue is still open, 1-2x a day my GPU would reset and only fix would be to restart my login session and the issue is still open last time I checked.