Ever had a question about Linux but felt too afraid to ask? Well now’s your chance, ask any question about Linux, no matter how noob or repeated it is, and I and others will help answer them.
Previous noob question thread: https://lemmy.ml/post/14261893
First off, I’d recommend you use the nvidia-dkms package, because that can make upgrading kernels easier. Second, let me explain the hierarchy of GUIs on Linux. At the base level, you have the display server. In your case, you are using the X11 display server. The display server is at a very low level, and only handles the rendering of content. The three prominent display servers are X11 and Wayland. The second tier is the window manager. It’s pretty much essential, and it lets you move around windows, stack them, etc. You’re using i3. The third tier is desktop environment. The desktop environment is completely optional, and it controls things like taskbars, start menus, and system trays. DEs are not needed for computer use, but they can make things like customization easier.
In your case, I don’t believe your issue is with your window manager or display server, I believe it is with Steam or Proton. What game are you trying to play? Some games aren’t able to be compatible with Proton, unfortunately.
Edit: A few corrections that I just thought of. First off, the display server doesn’t “just” handle rendering things. It handles input, and communicates to Linux, which will tell the hardware what to render. Second, I didn’t explicitly mention this, but I thought that I should, a desktop environment still relies on a window manager for handling windows, it just adds functionality. Also note I wrote this reply partially in response to another commend, so sorry if I yapped a bit too much.
I have another bookmarked comment telling me to use that. Thank you for all the information. I guess my question was a little vague. I was just thinking a DE might be easier for my setup rather than a port of my laptop setup. I’m bookmarking this, too. I’ll give your advice a go the next time I find time to Bork my desktop again. Definitely never buying nvidia ever again.
I don’t think your GPU is the issue here as well, I think your game might not work. If you want to try and diagnose the issue, I’d be happy to help. First, add the following to your Steam game options:
PROTON_LOG=1 %command%. Then, run the game. This will make a log file in your home directory, with the prefix “steam-” and then your appid. If you want to upload the log or paste the output here, I can try and look at it and try to help.