Safely switching to NVIDIA drivers for display with CUDA installed

[WISHETH]

After the last time I posted here, my Manjaro setup has since been using the Intel drivers on both Wayland and X (on KDE Plasma). I’ve also got the NVIDIA drivers installed with CUDA (both from the runfile), but I’d like to use the proprietary NVIDIA drivers as my display driver as well as being used with CUDA; however, I’m not sure how I’d do that safely, as installing CUDA through pacman in the past broke the drivers while I was using them for my display. A GUI application I want to install has CUDA as a prerequisite (for reasons I legitimately don’t understand); as such, I’m hoping this is possible.

[ydar]

@WISHETH

I’ve also got the NVIDIA drivers installed with CUDA (both from the runfile)

Well that is not recommended by nvidia or Manjaro. Start by uninstalling them. Then use manjaro’s tools to install them.

For future reference, the one thing you need to consider, is the CUDA package can/will interfere when changing nvidia drivers, so because it’s optional, you simply need to uninstall, do your update, then reinstall it.

Note that many Linux distributions provide their own packages of the NVIDIA Linux Graphics Driver in the distribution’s native package management format. This may interact better with the rest of your distribution’s framework, and you may want to use this rather than NVIDIA’s official package. - this is particularly relevant on Manjaro.

[Mirdarthos]

This is generally a Bad Idea AFAIK.

But look at this:

[HowTo] Use Wayland with proprietary NVIDIA drivers

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ Wayland does not play well with proprietary drivers. Currently the biggest issue is that NVIDIA does currently not support Xwayland properly, so apps that require it get software rendering. This includes most games, which are the most common use case for proprietary NVIDIA drivers. This is why GNOME automatically disables Wayland if you have NVIDIA. However, if this does not deter you, you can use Wayland with NVIDIA drivers. Here is how to do it: If not using G…

[WISHETH]

I assume, then, that I should use mhwd/Manjaro system settings to install NVIDIA drivers?

After that, should I install CUDA first, then configure NVIDIA to be my main display driver?

[WISHETH]

I’ve had success with Wayland and NVIDIA on other setups, so I’m not too worried; that said, I’m fine with using X11 as long as I’m able to use proprietary drivers for both display and CUDA.

[WISHETH]

Following this guide after installing CUDA blackscreens my computer before it reaches SDDM (or even the Manjaro boot screen), as it has before.

[Mirdarthos]

Sorry. All I can say the, is

[ydar]

Maybe some of the suggestions in this other topic might help?

Unfortunately, I can’t offer any more help.

On my desktop I am able to install CUDA and use my system without issue.