I have heard rumblings that Fedora is planning to drop installing X11 in some future version of Workstation, and only running Wayland. I’m in favor of switching to Wayland, but I’m also in favor of not getting new hardware. I’m currently running a HP ENVY m7 Notebook with an Nvidia GeForce 940MX Optimus chip set. Even though I have the Intel built in graphics available, I have been running this computer using the Nvidia graphics card 100% of the time with the RPM fusion driver.
I am under the impression that installing the RPM Fusion driver should give me access to a Wayland session. However, when I log in I have as my options “Gnome” or “Gnome Classic” and both seem to be running on an X11 session. Is my hardware to old to work with the RPM Nvidia Driver and Wayland, or do I have to install something else?
This install has been upgraded from one version of Fedora to the next since F31.
I believe the 940MX is supported by the latest nvidia drivers and as such should work well with Wayland. Wayland works well with the latest drivers for me.
I’m running F39, and when I am in GDM, the login screen. There is nothing in the bottom left. There is a gear icon in the bottom right, where it is listed “Gnome” or “Gnome Classic”. When I choose either of these options, Gnome or Gnome Classic launches in an X11 session. There is no way in the login screen to choose Gnome Wayland or Gnome X11. I do remember those options in previous versions of Fedora, and perhaps before I installed the RPM Fusion driver to use the Nvidia Graphics card full time instead of the Intel Builtin Graphics in the i7 chip.
Is your system a fresh install of F39 or an upgrade?
It isn’t clear whether you installed drivers directly from Nvidia or from the rpmfusion repository.
It is good practice to make sure your system is fully updated (including the vendor “BIOS” firmware) so you aren’t chasing bugs that have been fixed and so others will have the same packages.
When installing from rpmfusion with akmods you need to wait for the akmods processing to finish – many users have rebooted too quickly, It is helpful to
post (as searchable text using the </> button) the output from inxi -Fzxx. This will ensure that others with the same issue and hardware find this thread, and will confirm that the nvidia driver is being used.
Please provide the output from lsmod | grep nvidia which shows which nvidia modules are being used.
You may be able to find details of the problem with journalctl, but it takes some effort to find them amid the volume of detailed information. I usually start with journalctl -b -p 3 (show priority 3 and higher messages for the current boot).
I installed the driver from RPM Fusion (not directly from Nvidia)
I’m fairly certain that I waited long enough (5 minutes +) after running akmods. Also “Settings:About” shows that it is running off of the Nvidia GeForce 940MX.
Jan 10 06:20:17 epsilon kernel: x86/cpu: SGX disabled by BIOS.
Jan 10 06:20:17 epsilon systemd-vconsole-setup[247]: /usr/bin/setfont failed with exit status 71.
Jan 10 06:20:19 epsilon systemd-vconsole-setup[497]: /usr/bin/setfont failed with exit status 71.
Jan 10 06:20:24 epsilon kernel: usb 1-3.4: 4:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x84
Jan 10 06:20:29 epsilon kernel: NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 545.29.06 Thu Nov 16 01:59:08 UTC 2023
Jan 10 06:20:30 epsilon /usr/bin/nvidia-powerd[1005]: SBIOS support not found for NVPCF GET_SUPPORTED function
Jan 10 06:20:30 epsilon /usr/bin/nvidia-powerd[1005]: No matching GPU found
Jan 10 06:20:30 epsilon /usr/bin/nvidia-powerd[1005]: Failed to initialize RM Client
Jan 10 06:20:37 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[1788]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 06:20:38 epsilon kernel: usb 1-3.4: 4:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x84
Jan 10 06:20:38 epsilon kernel: usb 1-3.4: 4:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x84
Jan 10 06:21:07 epsilon gdm-password][2326]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jan 10 06:21:10 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[2563]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 06:21:13 epsilon systemd[2357]: Failed to start app-gnome-spice\x2dvdagent-2833.scope - Application launched by gnome-session-binary.
Jan 10 06:22:57 epsilon dleyna-renderer-service[4402]: Connector 'dbus' not found
Jan 10 06:22:57 epsilon dleyna-renderer-service[4409]: Connector 'dbus' not found
Jan 10 11:12:26 epsilon dleyna-renderer-service[6198]: Connector 'dbus' not found
Jan 10 11:12:27 epsilon dleyna-renderer-service[6216]: Connector 'dbus' not found
Jan 10 18:44:06 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[10117]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 18:44:40 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[11114]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 18:45:19 epsilon gdm-password][11603]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jan 10 18:45:22 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[11843]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 18:45:59 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[13187]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 18:46:01 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[13250]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 18:46:15 epsilon gdm-password][13748]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Jan 10 18:46:17 epsilon dbus-broker-launch[13962]: Ignoring duplicate name 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1' in service file '/usr/share//dbus-1/services/org.xfce.Thunar.FileManager1.service'
Jan 10 18:46:18 epsilon systemd[13803]: Failed to start app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring\x2dpkcs11-14120.scope - Application launched by gnome-session-binary.
Jan 10 18:46:18 epsilon systemd[13803]: Failed to start app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring\x2dsecrets-14108.scope - Application launched by gnome-session-binary.
Jan 10 18:46:18 epsilon systemd[13803]: Failed to start app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring\x2dssh-14113.scope - Application launched by gnome-session-binary.
Yes, it says the “Windoing System” is Wayland, but now under: Graphics: Intel® HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) Graphics 1: NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
Before it used to read: Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 940MX Graphics 1: NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
So does this mean that my Nvidia card is no longer running 100% of the time like I would desire?
Yes. it means that wayland is using the optimus mode which by default uses the intel iGPU unless the user explicitly starts an app with the nvidia dGPU.
According to the directions here
In xorg it is possible to copy the file from /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia.conf and by adding one line to that file Option "PrimaryGPU" "Yes" and using the xorg DE it makes the system use only the nvidia gpu. The same seems not really possible with wayland.
If you wish to use the nvidia GPU 100% of the time then it seems you must use xorg and not wayland.
I used to do that on my laptop but after the release of F39 and with the updates to wayland I now am using wayland on my laptop.