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Window Tearing(?) Issue on Nobara
(sh.itjust.works)
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Not sure if I'll be of help, but I can try. It would help to get some more information.
You're using the Breeze cursor theme, so I'll assume you're using KDE Plasma. The cursor looks like it's from Breeze 5, not 6, are you on the old Plasma 5? If you are on Plasma, you can go to settings and go to "System information" (near the bottom) or something like that. (IIRC, It was a long time ago since I last used it)
Are you using an Intel, AMD or Nvidia GPU?
Are you on X11 or Wayland? (They're different ways to handle windows, X11 is very old, but may work better in some cases. Wayland is newer, more secure, has some features that X11 lacks, like HDR & is usually better)
You can check the windowing system (X11/Wayland) by opening the terminal (the application Konsole on Plasma) and typing
echo $WAYLAND_DISPLAY
and pressing enter. If you only get an empty line, you're on X11, otherwise you're on Wayland.If you're on Wayland, go to the URL
about:support
in Firefox. Then search (ctrl+f) forWindow Protocol
. This should be Wayland, otherwise it's falling back to a X11 compatibility layer called Xwayland.Thanks for helping!
~~I'm on KDE Plasma 6.3.4 with Wayland, using an Nvidia GPU, 4080 super. Checking that about page, it says it's using wayland as well. I'm using flatpak firefox version 138.0.4.~~
~~I really can't peg what causes it. I have two monitors, and my non primary one seems worse than the other. My primary display will only do it occasionally, but scrolling through youtube on the other will basically always cause the issue. Like I said, I've only seen it happen with firefox so it has to be something weird with the install. Is there a different way to install firefox other than a flatpak? Googling that...~~
Ok, I'm not sure why I didn't try this, but I downloaded just the linux ...exe? Program? from the firefox website and it seems like the glitch is nonexistent on that version. My next question would be how different is that from the flatpak? What's the difference? Do I need to do something else for updates?
flatpak is basically linux's app store. flatpak is easier to install because it's just a button press and everything on flatpak is safe, and it handles updates for you, so try to use it as much as you can.
There are a few common ways to distribute software for Linux, which I'll try to explain while leaving out the more complicated parts:
So, how you installed a program may change how it works a bit. For example, the versions of dependencies you have can change the program's behaviour. Also, some configuration can often be done when compiling a program, like specifying whether to use Qt or GTK for drawing windows, or disabling bluetooth support. Different packagers (people who make appimages, flatpaks and/or paclage files) may choose different options here.
Sometimes flatpak programs may use old versions of dependencies. Also, I'm not sure if this is the case with Firefox, but Chromium's (Google chrome & derivatives, like Brave) sandboxing (security things) conflict with flatpak's own, so some of Chromium's security features are disabled in favor of using flatpak's own ones.
If the flatpak version of Firefox caused issues, I'd recommend trying the native version (package manager) instead of one downloaded from the internet. You can either do this from the graphical app store by selecting something like native, dnf or rpm instead of flatpak, or the native package manager with
sudo dnf install firefox
for Nobara, I think. Unlike flatpaks, native programs are installed for all users & require you to type your password during installation.If you use an appimage or manually downloaded .rpm file, you need to take care of updates manually, by downloading a newer version like you did during installation. I would strongly advise against this, unless necessary & you know exactly what you're doing.
I think this answered your question, but feel free to ask if anything was unclear or you have other questions. I'm a programmer & I've used Linux for a while, so I should be able to answer most questions.
Edit:
Sorry for the wall of text. I hope it wasn't too jargony.
TL;DR:
The wall of text has context & things that might br good to keep in mind, but I'd recommend removing the flatpak version & the Linux .exe equivalent you're using, then trying
sudo dnf install firefox
.Edit 2:
Nvidia can sometimes cause problems on Linux, but if a different version of Firefox worked, it is very likely not the case here. Sometimes switching from Wayland to X11 or vice versa might help a bit, at least until the next driver update. Otherwise, I'd recommend Wayland, as it's more secure, actively developed, has fancy features X11 lacks & can be a bit more efficient.
Glad you found a way around the problem!
Thanks for the response, definitely helpful! My follow up to that would be I'm still not sure how updating would work if I run the command you posted. Once I run that in the terminal, how do I know when there is an update for firefox? Will firefox just tell me like in windows, and update itself? Do I need to run a specific command in the terminal to prompt updates?
While I have you here too, I've just found one more bug that's been bothering me... In the application launcher, when I try to use the scroll bar the cursor won't select the bar itself, instead just defaulting to resizing the window. Any ideas on that? It's kind of a pain but I could live with it. Googling again didn't really bring up anything conclusive. Here's a clip to see what I'm talking about. Thank you again!
If the grahical app store has asked for a password when updating, like on normal Fedora (what Nobara is based on), all programs installed with
sudo dnf install <program(s)>
are also updated. A update to native packages can also be ran withsudo dnf upgrade
. Flatpaks can be updated from the app store or withflatpak update
. (no sudo, as that just raises the privileges for the next command, like dnf)Linux has become more user-friendly, but due to the many, many alternatives for pretty much everything, while some programs integrate well with each other, this is not the case for everything, sadly.
Sorry, I don't know about the scroll issue. The scroll wheel on a mouse or dragging 2 fingers on a touchpad should still work.
TL;DR:
If you are prompted for a password when updating, everything's fine. This should be the case for you, as Nobara is based on Fedora, which supports this. Otherwise, you have to run
sudo dnf upgrade
or the equivalent for your distributions's package manager.