nvidia on wayland in 2026: it mostly works now, and here is the exact config that got me there

i have complained about nvidia on wayland for years (see my torvalds clip) so it is only fair to say: in 2026 it mostly works. not perfectly. mostly. here is the actual config that took me from "unusable flicker and dead external monitor" to "daily driver", on arch with sway and an nvidia 30-series card. distro: arch, kernel 6.x, sway, nvidia proprietary driver (not nouveau, not yet).

1. the driver and the kernel modules

install the proprietary nvidia driver and, this is the bit people miss, enable the DRM kernel mode setting. add nvidia_drm.modeset=1 to your kernel parameters. without it, wayland compositors and nvidia do not get along and you get the flicker everyone screenshots.

2. early loading

put the nvidia modules in your initramfs (MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm) in mkinitcpio.conf) and rebuild. this stops the "works after i replug the monitor" nonsense because the module is there before the display comes up.

3. launch sway with the right flag

sway historically refused nvidia without --unsupported-gpu. on current versions it is better but if sway will not start on nvidia, that flag is the first thing to try. yes the flag is called that on purpose. yes it is a little insulting. it works.

4. environment variables

the ones that actually mattered for me: WLR_NO_HARDWARE_CURSORS=1 (kills the invisible/laggy cursor), and setting the GBM backend so electron apps and firefox pick the right path. firefox needs MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 or it runs under xwayland and looks blurry on a hidpi screen.

5. the external monitor

the dead external monitor on wake was the modeset issue in point 1 ninety percent of the time. the last ten percent was a specific cable, because of course it was. if one output refuses to wake, before you reinstall your whole system, try a different cable and port. i lost an evening to a dock that half worked.

honest verdict

is it as smooth as my friends on amd? no. do games and my daily work run fine now, with the occasional need to restart sway after a driver update? yes. if you are buying a laptop specifically for linux, still buy amd or intel graphics and save yourself the config. but if you already have nvidia, it is no longer a reason to stay on x11 or windows. it mostly works now. i cannot believe i typed that either.