My end goal is to get my desktop running functionally like a high-powered Steam Deck with my HDR monitor. I’m beyond fed up with Microsoft and really want a Linux distro to be the primary OS on my PC (and ultimately the only OS once Ubisoft decides to support R6: Siege on Linux). Eventually I’ll switch from my NVIDIA GPU to AMD since everything I’ve read makes AMD out to be far more consumer and Linux friendly than NVIDIA, but in the time being I’d love some help getting this working on my current hardware.

To get KDE Plasma 6 with HDR running, so far I have tried installing the latest HoloIso and Manjaro’s official Plasma desktop stable branch. Before doing all of the below I made sure that the option to use the iGPU ports was disabled in my BIOS.

For HoloIso, I’ve followed the directions from the GitHub readme file and installed from a USB drive to one of my internal 1 TB SSDs. I’m able to boot from the ISO on the USB drive and run the installation tool in HoloIso. The installation seemingly runs successfully and tells me to restart. After restarting and booting into that drive, I see the GRUB menu which disappears quickly, and then I see nothing but a black screen. I have tried booting with both of my monitors connected to my GPU via DisplayPort, and booting with only one monitor connected to my GPU via DisplayPort. Neither seems to solve the issue.

I then went on to try what seemed like a more stable distro that was similar to SteamOS - Manjaro with Plasma. Installation went smoothly and I was able to actually boot into Manjaro after installation. Noticing there was no HDR option in the display settings I did some Googling and found that I was using X11 and not Wayland (which is where the HDR support lies). I did some more Googling and found a guide to switch to Wayland (I can’t find the guide again now dangit) but upon doing so and restarting, all I saw was a black screen.

Honestly, if anyone has any suggestions for what to try I would love some help. I’m familiar with navigating Linux but relatively unfamiliar with installing it and VERY unfamiliar with display technologies so any suggestions for what to try are appreciated.

  • dono@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 months ago

    Since you want an arch based dostro, i can highly recommend EndevourOS. Its comes with an easy to use installer, many desktop env options and a few quality of life tools like a comandline tool (nvidia-inst) to install nvidia drivers. And if you choose KDE Plasma in the installer, it will default to wayland.

    AMD is still by far the better gpu choice for linux, but since explicit sync support is now in the 555 nvidia driver and kde plasma 6.1, most problems that nvidia had (i had) with wayland have seemingly just vanished. So no need to imeadiatly buy a new gpu.

  • dan@upvote.au
    2·
    2 months ago

    For what it’s worth, KDE Plasma 6.1.1 and Wayland are working perfectly for me on Fedora 40, but only after installing the newest Nvidia drivers version 555.58, which was only added to the Fedora RPMFusion repo last week. Wayland didn’t work well at all before that.

  • Dandroid@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    2 months ago

    Just this weekend I installed Manjaro after having tons and tons of issues with SUSE since the Plasma 6 upgrade. I have a laptop with AMD integrated graphics, which Plasma is running on, so your issues may not apply to me. But if I run any apps on the Nvidia GPU in full screen, I do get the flickering issue.

    My biggest issue I have is that no matter what distro I use, as soon as I install the proprietary Nvidia driver, my system fails to boot like 20% of the time. It just freezes during boot with no error messages or warnings that I can find. But once it boots, it works.

    I’m not sure how to run Plasma on my dedicated GPU so I can see if I have the same issues you have. But with my current setup, it works.

  • NakedGardenGnome@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    1·
    2 months ago

    I do, using endeavourOS, which is basically “arch but with a graphical installer, using some sane defaults”. Not 100% true, but true enough to think of it as such.

    If you have no experience installing Linux, either use endeavouros, or go the RFTM way, and use arch. But that last one requires a lot of reading, and grasping quite a lot of Linux concepts, or be willing to learn them.

    PS: I do use plain arch on my AMD laptop, but couldn’t be arsed to go through the installation for my Nvidia desktop.

    • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      There are other Arch distros with a graphical installer: Garuda (which is my choice of distro) and Manjaro are the main ones I can think of. Doesn’t require the RTFM route, but Arch is definitely not your grandma’s Linux (or maybe it is, I don’t know anyone’s grandma).

      • NakedGardenGnome@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        While I know of Garuda, I have no experience in using it, hence I cannot recommend it. IIRC it’s also quite gaming-focused? Their default neon look and feel throws me off, I would have to clean it all up for my tastes, which I don´t want to bother with.

        I’ve become a lazy arch-based linux distro user…

        • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          Yep you’re right, it’s mainly set up for gaming (especially the Dragonized version). And the theme/style is a bit over the top.

          I am with you on the laziness which is why I just accepted the default style :) I may, one day, switch to a different theme. I just wish KDE would not reset the apps I have on the application bar when I do.

        • pelotron@midwest.socialEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          I think there are quite a few non-gamers in their community, but yes a couple of the DE’s they offer lean into the RGB neon style. I like that they actually provide some style (that I like, luckily) out of the box instead of just a regular ass desktop like every other distro.

  • Hellmo_luciferrari@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    To get Nvidia working on Arch here is what I did:

    During installation of Arch when it asked if I wanted to chroot into my distro I did. However if you enter commandline by hitting CTR+ALT+<F1 or F2 or F3> to change to a virtual console. If you are doing this from a chroot environment you don’t need sudo.

    edit the mkinitcpio.conf

    sudo nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

    In the MODULES=() section I added “nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm” without quotes. So it looked like this:

    MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)

    Afterwards I updated my initramfs images by running:

    sudo mkinitcpio -P

    Then I edited my grub config:

    sudo nano /etc/default/grub

    Find the line that says “GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”“”

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nvidia-drm.modeset=1"

    Then I updated grub

    sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

    Note: I use the Nvidia Proprietary drivers

    Resources: Arch Wiki

    I do not recommend Manjaro especially if you are going to be using the AUR (Arch User Repository) as it can cause things to break.

  • gerryflap@feddit.nl
    1·
    2 months ago

    I’m on Arch (actually a converted Antergos) and I have an NVIDIA card as well. My first attempt a few months ago was horrible, bricking my system and requiring a bootable USB an a whole evening to get Linux working again.

    My second attempt was recently, and went a lot better. X11 no longer seems to work, so I’m kinda stuck with it, but it feels snappy as long as my second monitor is disconnected. I’ve yet to try some gaming. My main monitor is a VRR 144Hz panel with garbage-tier HDR. The HDR worked out of the box on KDE Plasma, with the same shitty quality as on Windows, so I immediately turned it off again. When my second monitor is connected I get terrible hitching. Every second or so the screen just freezes for hundreds of milliseconds. Something about it (1280x1024, 75Hz, DVI) must not make Wayland happy. No settings seem to change anything, only physically disconnecting the monitor seems to work.