I have tried to Google this and am not having much luck. I am wondering if I need to reinstall everything that is Wayland to wipe out any issues, but I am not completely sure how to do that either. Here is what happens. When I login to KDE (the only desktop I use) with X11, everything works perfectly. I wanted to see how Wayland behaved on my laptop with the dedicated NVIDIA card and Steam. So I installed the Wayland and Wayland related packages that I found from the Arch Wiki (including wayland and xwayland), rebooted, changed from X11 to Wayland on the login screen and then tried to login. The screen went black, then some white text spread out all over the screen appeared but then disappeared before I could read any of it, and then I was back at the login screen again. I can only assume I messed up a configuration file somewhere related to Wayland when I was doing something else, or something is corrupted somewhere. But I cannot figure out what to do. That is why I was thinking maybe I could just do a complete reinstall of Wayland and Wayland-related packages, and that might fix whatever is wrong. I appreciate any help/advice!
Another thing to take into consideration. KDE does not always work well with Wayland, it is getting better but not completely useable in all cases. I have run into problems with Wayland myself on my system (I use KDE also) but I do agree this might be more of a NVIDIA issue as NVIDIA currently does not play well with Wayland. Not saying it won’t work but you need to do some configurations that nvidia-inst doesn’t take care of sometimes.
Okay, I went through the links you sent and it looks like I was missing at least one package (forgot which one, but I installed it). But the same thing is still happening. This is probably a silly question, but the text that flashes on the screen before I get sent back to the login page - is that potentially recorded in a log file somewhere? I am wondering if it is and I could find it, that I might be able to find what else is missing/corrupt/etc. Thank you both for your help!!
I did this will in x11 session. A black window opened and closed right away. The output from the terminal was this:
No backend specified, automatically choosing X11 because DISPLAY is set
kwin_wayland_x11windowed: X server supports SHM extension but not shared pixmaps
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "sleek.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.picmi.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.lskat.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ktnef.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ksudoku.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ksquares.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kspaceduel.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ksnakeduel.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ksirkskineditor.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ksirk.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kshisen.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kreversi.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kpat.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.palapeli.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kollision.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.knights.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.knetwalk.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kigo.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kmines.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kblackbox.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kmahjongg.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.konquest.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.bovo.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kmail2.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "tidgi.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kdiamond.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "Uninstall Origin.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ksame.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kblocks.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kbounce.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kbreakout.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kolf.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "Origin error reporter.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kapman.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kubrick.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.knavalbattle.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "Origin.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.blinken.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.bomber.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.ktuberling.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.contactprintthemeeditor.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.contactthemeeditor.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kajongg.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.granatier.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.headerthemeeditor.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.katomic.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kfourinline.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kjumpingcube.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kgoldrunner.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.khangman.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kanagram.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.klickety.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.killbots.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.kiriki.desktop"
kf.globalaccel.kglobalacceld: No desktop file found for service "org.kde.klines.desktop"
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.1.0 NVIDIA 535.54.03
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.40 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
Driver: NVIDIA
Driver version: 535.54.3
GPU class: Unknown
OpenGL version: 3.1
GLSL version: 1.40
Linux kernel version: 6.3.9
Requires strict binding: no
GLSL shaders: yes
Texture NPOT support: yes
Virtual Machine: no
kwin_scene_opengl: Creating the OpenGL rendering failed: "query surface failed"
kwin_core: The used windowing system requires compositing
kwin_core: We are going to quit KWin now as it is broken
So I am trying to search for something related to all of this. Not much luck so far, but maybe someone else will see this and will recognize something.
I am also wondering if I switched to my Intel GPU if I would be able to login (gonna try it in a few minutes), but still be able to run Steam games with the NVIDIA GPU.
I don’t think this is a normal way to start kde wayland. Always trust The Archwiki info, before anything else .
It would help if you knew/posted which packages you had installed when trying to make KDE Wayland work. Archwiki suggests:
To enable support for Wayland in Plasma, also install the plasma-wayland-session package. 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.
You could try starting from a TTY session, instead from the Login Screen, but the easiest troubleshooting is to create a new user account and log in to that, selecting KDE Wayland from SDDM.
After a failed login, login to KDE-Xorg, or to a TTY (Ctrl+Alt+F3), and check journal:
Okay, so I do have plasma-wayland-session installed, and enabled the DRM kernal mode setting. I wasn’t trying to start kde wayland from the terminal, but the webpage used those commands to test it.
I did try changing to my Intel integrated GPU and that did not change anything when trying to use Wayland, so no joy there.
I did find the logs in the journal (thank you) and am still looking through those to see if I can find anything.
If you follow the steps in the linked thread and nothing seems to work, then you may create your own thread to seek a different solution.
Lastly, please note that Wayland and Nvidia don’t like each other, in general. Some people get it to work, some don’t. Especially when you add KDE to the mix, because KDE and Nvidia don’t like each other that much either.
Nvidia is the problem.
.