Graphical Environments & Desktops • Re: Issue with NVIDIA driver on Debian13- Wayland disabled after instalation

I think the directions on that wiki don't work. I tried following the directions on that page too and had trouble, but followed the directions on Linuxconfig.org and they worked perfectly. Well, sorta perfectly. Wayland doesn't work when I log in so I have to switch to X11, and KDE Plasma has bad flicker, but otherwise I'm up.

I use what webpages and videos I can find relating to what I'm trying to do, for confirmation of what is on the more official webpages. Often the commands to copy and paste into the terminal are not quite the same, and I like to use the official ones. I did use that LinuxConfig page in that way. (Trying to make sense of official pages of technical information makes me feel like I'm standing in a flock of pigeons, or a whirlwind of confetti.)
Did you see these two sections of that notorious https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers page :

Post-installation steps for Trixie

Optionally verify the result of the DKMS module compilation:

Code:

    # dkms status

If you plan to use wayland (which is a default for both the Gnome and KDE Plasma desktops since Debian 12 "Bookworm") make sure to follow the Wayland Modesetting notes below.

If gnome starts with X11, you may enable wayland support by enabling NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1 as mentioned below.

If you plan to use suspend/hibernate functionality under KDE desktop environment, you may want to add another option to avoid graphics "glitches" after wakeup/restore:
Warning: skip this step if you have Optimus hybrid graphics

Code:

        # echo "options nvidia NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-options.conf

In most cases a restart of the system is recommended to fully load the new driver. For wayland, check again if modeset is properly set, as described above.

And in the

Wayland configuration

section :

In terms of specific desktop support, GNOME supports NVIDIA Wayland sessions in both Debian 10 and Debian 11, though they call their support "preliminary". KDE Plasma supports NVIDIA Wayland sessions starting with Debian 11, though it requires some extra hoops to enable, and generally is not recommended. Refer to the Wayland section of the Debian KDE wiki page for up-to-date information: https://wiki.debian.org/KDE#Wayland.2C_ ... .2C_hi-DPI

Then it goes on to say :

In Debian 12/bookworm, almost all issues should be resolved and most Wayland sessions should "just work" with the 535-series driver.

(and presumably any later one, which the 550-series must be), but, as we have seen, it doesn't "just work".

Then there is the Wiki's Wayland page :
https://wiki.debian.org/Wayland

Desktops

GNOME (supported since 3.20+)

The Wayland session is built into GNOME and it should be an option in your display manager simply by having GNOME installed.

As this is the default Debian desktop environment, Wayland is used by default in Debian 10 and newer, older versions use Xorg by default.

KDE Plasma (supported since 5.4+)

KDE Plasma requires the non-default plasma-workspace-wayland package to be installed. This is often enough for basic functionality, however you are recommended to read the detailed wiki section for KDE on Wayland, especially if you are using an NVIDIA GPU.

And indeed, as arzgi wrote :

even XFCE is moving towards wayland

XFCE (unsupported)
Support being worked on upstream.

And by the way, installing kernel headers was one of the steps I went through.

My laptop seems to be working well, but I want to do these last steps. The Nvidia card should be used. And I don't want to have to be scared of letting the laptop going to "suspend".

Statistics: Posted by TechTerrorized — 2026-01-03 03:18

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