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Install Steam on an arch-based distro with "picky" nvidia drivers (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 week ago by Lisk91@sh.itjust.works to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This isn't a guide, just something i think may help. To install Steam on an Arch-based distro in most of the cases a simple sudo pacman -S steam will do just fine.

The installation will ask you to select a valid vulkan package from a list. And in most of the cases that's just fine... most of them.

Then you have your very "picky" old nvidia GPU which works only with a specific old nvidia driver and if you try to install anything else, there will be a conflict. Now you can try to remove the old (working) drivers and try your luck. But looking online i find a simple way to skip this passage and install Steam.

sudo pacman -S steam --assume-installed lib32-vulkan-driver

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[-] nothingcorporate@lemmy.today 8 points 1 week ago

Fuck Nvidia and their powering AI systems for Netayahu's genocide. Team Red all the way.

[-] Amaterasu@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I'm lucky that I have the benefit to choose and can use another GPU brand that is open source and integrated to the kernel.

[-] LostWanderer@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago

LOL Oofta, that was me years ago fighting for my life on an NVIDIA optimus GPU and trying to game on Linux. Total shitshow, I might have to abandon NVIDIA with my next upgrade when the prices come down, AMD is a bit better on Linux (my Ryzen is thriving and surviving on Garuda Linux). Can't wait to get a full AMD build and not have to worry about NVIDIA making things weird.

[-] InvisibleShoe@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Haha I just spent the last 2 days trying to get nvidia to work on arch. Its my first time using arch but I did end up getting the drivers to work by removing the default one and installing the dkms drivers. Still a pain in the ass though.

[-] Lisk91@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Been there, done that 👍

[-] Solaris1220@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

The image for the post is amazing lmao

[-] Vertelleus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

It took me days to get my nvidia gpu working correctly. Due to being wayland I can't use steamlink to stream to my Steam Deck and issues with VLC glitchy, pixeled playback. Otherwise everything works perfectly.

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

What’s this meme from? Is it a babadook still?

[-] snoons@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

I have to reinstall the driver for my ancient 1070Ti pretty much every update.

[-] Jo4ted@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Interesting. My 1070ti works fine after every update. I switched to CachyOS after it lost mainstream support, so maybe it's that? Idk. Best of luck figuring that out, though, sounds awful.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Maybe dkms isn't automatically building?

And yeah, like Jo4 suggested... you should try Cachy. Support is way better than stock Arch because all that is preconfigured.

[-] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Then you have your very “picky” old nvidia GPU which works only with a specific old nvidia driver and if you try to install anything else, there will be a conflict.

I just use TKG's installer, it's pretty much fixed all of my NVIDIA-related problems:

git clone https://github.com/Frogging-Family/nvidia-all
cd nvidia-all
makepkg -si

The default is vulkan-beta drivers via DKMS. You may need to manually install linux-headers but you may already have it installed from other DKMS-related activities.

[-] Lojcs@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

Wow this is just what I needed I think

[-] yesman@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

I suppose I'm lucky. Catchy installed the Nvidia driver during the install and works/ updates without issue. I've got an older card, but not ancient. gtx1660

I did have issues when I first switched to Linux, but that was on Debian.

[-] brisk@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Currently "older cards" is GTX 10xx series and earlier

This is a deliberate choice made by Nvidia with respect to their proprietary drivers, and has nothing to do with the operating system.

[-] NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com 0 points 1 week ago

Cachy kept freezing on me as did many other distros I was using. I found the common reason was due to Wayland and I’ve been on Linux Mint Cinnamon ever since with no issues like that. RTX 4080 Super

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

How recent was this? Cinammon only just got experimental Wayland support, AFAIK. Like, a month or two ago?

And Cachy KDE Nvidia Wayland was jank for a while (hence it defaulted to X11), but it works fine for me, for now.

[-] NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com 2 points 1 week ago

I made this change like back in December or so. I had been distro hopping since moving to Linux in August of last year and was on a ton of distros with KDE that all had Wayland.

I moved to Mint Cinnamon because it seemed to be one of the few that wasn’t using Wayland and my issues stopped. I believe they did have experimental Wayland on one of the versions and I made sure not to use that one since I was under the impression it was due to Wayland and remember trying to decide between the other options they had.

this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
60 points (98.4% liked)

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