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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
23 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.

[-] 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 👍

[-] 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.

[-] 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

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

Depending how old the GPU is, Nouveau or the other one may lead to better results by now.

[-] 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.

[-] yuman@programming.dev 0 points 1 week ago

anyone knows what kinda driver that isn't nouveau works for a GT750M? @mlg@lemmy.world which did you use for your 750ti?

got a Macbook Pro 2013 motherboard (i7-4850, 16 GB DDR3, GT750M 2 GB) that I'm thinking of turning into a desktop. no gaming intended, although welcome if possible (old titles).

[-] nocteb@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

try this one: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nvidia-470xx-dkms

Edit: there is a good link as well on that driver page that should help:

https://github.com/korvahannu/arch-nvidia-drivers-installation-guide

this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
65 points (98.5% liked)

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