For most distributions you can simply install the (proprietary) nvidia drivers and you're good to go.
There is generally no tweaking or command line changes necessary for Nvidia to work on Wayland, including multi-monitors with different resolutions and refresh rates.
> completely effed on most distributions
> But I just want a Linux distro that works.
But I think Pop is the best distro for this. System76 is highly incentivized to do exactly this and specifically with nvidia drivers and laptops (laptops create extra complications...). I can't promise it'll be a cure-all but it is worth giving a shot. I would try their forums too.
I totally get the frustration. I've been there, unfortunately. I hope you can get someone to help.
I know my ways around Arch, and in the about two years using CachyOS I never needed to intervene, with the exception of things like changed configs/split packages. But those are announced in advance on their webpages, be it Arch itself, or CachyOS, and also appear in good old Pacman in the terminal, or whichever frontend you fancy. It's THE DREAM!
What's lacking is maybe pre-packaged llm/machine learning stuff. Maybe I'm stupid, but they don't even have current llama.cpp, WTF? But at least Ollama is there. LM-Studio also has to be compiled by yourself, either via the AUR, or otherwise. But these are my only complaints.
> Maybe I'm stupid, but they don't even have current llama.cpp, WTF?
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/llama.cpp
> has to be compiled by yourself, either via the AUR
Is running `yay -S llama.cpp` really that big of a deal? You're not intervening in any way different for any other package (that also aren't precompiled binaries)
Yes, exactly :-)
Haven't used yay or other aur helpers so far. Maybe that's why my systems run so stable?
Should maybe look into it.
Have used Yaourt on Arch in the far past, with...errm...varying success ;->
> Haven't used yay or other aur helpers so far.
> Have used Yaourt on Arch in the far past,
> Maybe that's why my systems run so stable?
>>> I know my ways around Arch
I guess I'm asking, have you installed the vanilla distro? Are you familiar with things like systemd-boot, partitioning, arch-chroot, mkinitcpio, and all that?
At that time there existed an AUR-helper called Yaourt, which I made heavy use of. But often in haste, sloppy. Which lead to many unnecessary clean-up actions, but no loss of system. Meanwhile I had to use other stuff, so no Arch for a while. When the need for using other stuff was gone I considered several options, like Gentoo, but naa, I don't wanna compile anymore!1!! (Yes, Yes, I know they serve binpkgs now, but would they have my preferred USE-flags?) Maybe Debian, which can be fucking fast when run in RAM like Antix, but I had that for a while, and while it's usable, Debian as such is bizarre.
Anything Redhat? No thanks. SuSe? Same. So I came across CachyOS, and continued to use that, from the first "test-installation" running to this day, because it works for me, like I wrote before. Like a dream come true.
Remembering my experiences with Yaourt I abstained from using the AUR. And that worked very well for me, so far. Also the Gentoo-like 'ricing' comes for free with their heavily optimized binary packages, without compromising stability.
> I guess I'm asking, have you installed the vanilla distro? Are you familiar with things like systemd-boot, partitioning, arch-chroot, mkinitcpio, and all that?
Yes.
Are we clear now?
Edit: I'm so overconfident I'm even considering disabling the pacman-hooks into BTRFS-snapshots, because I never needed them.
No rollback necessary, ever, so far. Same goes for pacman cache. After every -Syu follows an immediate -Scc.
Because the only way is forwaaaaard ;-)
Yes, we're clear now, but are you surprised by my hesitation? Because having that experience would imply you've had a lot of experience compiling things the long way. Running makepkg -si isn't that complicated. It's as easy as it gets. There's no make, no configure, no cmake, no determining the dependencies yourself and installing those yourself too. I don't get the issue. Take too long? Not happen automatically?
> I'm so overconfident I'm even considering disabling the pacman-hooks into BTRFS-snapshots, because I never needed them.
Yes and Yes. Long before Arch I did LFS and Gentoo. And NetBSD like Gentoo.
I'm having had it! Gimme binaries in the flavors (Hello OpenBSD!) I want/like!1!! ;->