Hi Forpil.
Yes, it's a i5 with nVidia Quadro K1100M - 2 GB DDR3!
do you think it's a problem?
The latest nvidia driver for this nvidia card is the 390 driver. If you want to install the proprietary nvidia driver (which doesn't get updates any more, but is maybe more powerful) I would recommend to install Zorin 17 Lite because there are more options to get it to work (kelebek333 ppa or kernel 5.15). You can also use the open source driver Nouveau, it works on Zorin 17 and 18. By default, kernel 6.8 of Zorin 17 doesn't support that proprietary 390 nvidia driver. You need to install an older kernel or add an ppa.
You can test the nvidia driver and nouveau and keep that which works better for you. I myself use Nouveau but my experience with Zorin 17Lite is better than with Linux Mint XFCE 22.1 which was also ubuntu 24.04 based as Zorin 18. Zorin 18 Lite I haven't tested yet as bare-metal-installation, only from live boot stick. I'll probably stay with Zorin 17 Lite as long as it is supported.
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I thought to install zorin 18.1 without nvidia driver.
You can try that and test. If you have problems, install Zorin 17.3 Lite.
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Okay, nobara 43 is too heavy for this little set up. but I will try it on the usb stick first. We will see what happens.
It's a journey to go through, but I want to get rid of all Microsoft and Apple systems because of recall and integrated #palantir on their servers.
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Hey Joe,
Glad you're well and your users happy.
Kernel 7.05 update
As for me, I'm happily on kernel 7.05 now. I tried running updates a few days later and the problem went away.
Hardware Acceleration in YouTube broken (CachyOS)
My new problem is that older YouTube videos wont play in Brave with hardware acceleration turned on. Simple solution is to turn off hardware acceleration in the browser.
I haven't researched the issue yet as toggling off hardware acceleration works well enough. I suspect the latest NVIDIA driver update doesn't play nice with some older codecs.
It will be fixed soon enough and I have a work-around.
I had quite a bit of fun troubleshooting it... actually, not really.
A positive outcome of it is that I can confidently reinstall and restore my Brave configuration settings from backup without losing anything.
The .config folder is magic! 
Urbackup - cross platform open-source backup/restore
In other news, I've started using UrBackup to backup my files to centralised storage. It works a treat.
I only backup files with it. I haven't tried an image backup/restore.
I learned about it from Chris Titus.
Docker + DebianVM + Proxmox hypervisor for home hosting
Also, be proud of me! I've finally started using Docker containers to host my home NextCloud, PiHole, Nginx Proxy, etc. I have Docker hosted on a Proxmox-hosted Debian VM.
I'm happy to be running European tech (Proxmox and Nextcloud) as I continue to migrate away from Microsoft.
Hardware Acceleration -- broken in both Chrome and Firefox on CachyOS
Update (a few days later): I thought video playback of older videos was broken only for Chrome and not Firefox, but hardware acceleration is broken for both of them. Firefox is smart enough to not use hardware acceleration if it detects it isn't supported. Forcing hardware acceleration makes Firefox act the same as Chrome. Also reinstalling the latest NVIDIA 595 Open driver doesn't fix the problem. Will try an earlier GPU driver next.
Urbackup - Image backup results in failed Linux Mint boot up
My theory: Failure due to Linux Mint sharing the boot drive with other Linux installations - to be researched
I tried enabling image backups for Urbackup in Linux Mint and it stopped the system from booting. After some tinkering with grub entries and a TimeShift snapshot restore, Linux Mint is booting again. I'll try again some other time using image backups as I have other things to do. In the meantime, file backup works well with Urbackup.
I'll test an image backup of a VM later as I do not want to "test" on my main Linux desktop (as much as my past behaviour states otherwise).
Hardware Acceleration issue narrowed down to the CachyOS implementation of NVIDIA Prime
FIGURED IT OUT why the older YouTube videos stopped working.
CachyOS has a CHWD (Cachy Hardware Detect?) tool that allows you to install and uninstall predefined GPU profiles.
After uninstalling the NVIDIA driver completely and reinstalling manually from the package manager (not using CHWD profiles), I found I was able to play the YouTube videos; however, when I went to install the CHWD NVIDIA Prime GPU profile via the detection tool hardware acceleration broke for older YouTube videos.
The NVIDIA Prime GPU profile allows for work to be shared between the integrated Intel GPU and the NVIDIA dedicated GPU.
I had my BIOS configured to hybrid mode which allows both GPUS to be used.
Once I set the BIOS to NVIDIA only (dedicated mode), YouTube videos began working again regardless of the CachyOS GPU profile.
So... the problem is with Cachy OS's current/updated implementation of NVIDIA Prime, so other distros (ZorinOS) likely do not suffer the problem.
If I disable Prime by either removing the Prime profile, or by disabling Hybrid mode in the BIOS, I'm once again able to play older YouTube videos with hardware acceleration enabled.
Took me 90 minutes or so to figure out this Rubiks cube.
Got there in the end.
Time to take a bow...
and get some sleep. G'nite!
(and I've discovered markup formatting for these posts )
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Spare a thought for us in the UK. The fox is in the hen house.
btw: I consider NVIDIA an honorary member of American BigTech. When this laptop goes, I'll do my best not to buy NVIDIA.
If I can still afford to buy a laptop. 
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As Nobara is downstream from Fedora, you could try one of Fedora's lightweight desktops whilst still benefiting from Fedora's hardware support.
For example,
Fedora has many pre-configured lite desktop editions to choose from...
If you are feeling really adventurous, go with a tiling manager rather than a full desktop environment.
Although, I haven't tried it the i3 tiling manager runs X11 which is more resource efficient than Wayland, and being it is a tiling manager, it should maximise the amount of RAM left over for your applications.
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Yessss, Nvidia is now in basket of US Government!
When my PC disappears I will see what to get on the market outside the political fail manufacturers. But I think it's getting dystopia each more year.
Okay, since we decide to hold our data closed in Linux Nextcloud on European server we get 5 to 8 years of safeness.
If you mind, you can work with an own home server. Maybe more expensive and a lot of code-line work, but truly the most safe thing.
Microsoft ends up in 2027 to downgrade the OS on PC's to a client agent. So you're lost in the MAGA clan and Palantir.
Apple has already the cloudcomputing established through iOS on iPhones. The integration of Palantir is 2027 set on standard....
So stay away from Big-Tech platforms!
The ThinkPad W540 works best with Linux kernel 6.8 and the 330 or 470 driver. this means I had to use L Mint 21.3. Or if I don't need the performance of the K1100 Nvidia chip I can use Mint 22 with the Nouveau driver. that should be the best solution.
Think I'm gonna try Mint 22 on X11 with Nouveau and if it works I get support until 2029. Then the TP ist 16 years old and I guess no chance to let it work longer.
Hold the line! See you.
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Hi Joe,
I agree with everything you said. Good you are finding what works for the laptop as well. I am hosting my own NextCloud All-In-One environment at home. Runs a treat on docker.
My broken hardware acceleration saga continues...
I've discovered that if you launch the Brave browser (or likely any browser) from the command prompt, any errors will be reported to the command console as you use the browser.
When the hardware acceleration breaks, the following errors repeat over and over and over very, very quickly.
[89247:89247:0517/215351.111634:ERROR:gpu/command_buffer/service/shared_image/shared_image_manager.cc:260] SharedImageManager::ProduceSkia: Trying to produce a Skia representation from an incompatible backing: CompoundImageBacking
[89247:89247:0517/215351.149043:ERROR:ui/gl/angle_platform_impl.cc:47] ImageEGL.cpp:112 (operator()): eglCreateImage failed with 0x00003009
ERR: ImageEGL.cpp:112 (operator()): eglCreateImage failed with 0x00003009
[89247:89247:0517/215351.149382:ERROR:ui/gl/scoped_egl_image.cc:23] Failed to create EGLImage: EGL_SUCCESS
[89247:89247:0517/215351.149588:ERROR:ui/ozone/common/native_pixmap_egl_binding.cc:75] Unable to initialize binding from pixmap
[89247:89247:0517/215351.149695:ERROR:gpu/command_buffer/service/shared_image/ozone_image_backing.cc:315] OzoneImageBacking::ProduceSkiaGanesh failed to create GL representation
So an AI-assisted search later, I found the suggestion to force the browser to use the X11 version of Ozone, rather than Wayland in the browser.
Launch Brave with the following command:
Brave --ozone-platform=X11
And by forcing that setting, the hardware acceleration works with the laptop in hybrid graphics mode inside a Wayland session. 
Conditions that bring out the hw acceleration issue
So the bug happens when the following conditions are in place:
- NVIDIA Prime (hybrid graphics mode - Intel/NVIDIA) - GPU handoff mode
- Hardware Acceleration enabled in browser
- Session running under the Wayland compositor
- Playing older YouTube videos (sry - haven't analysed which specific codecs are affected). Newer videos tend to avoid the issue.
Work Arounds to avoid the issue
To get around the bug you can do any one of the following:
- Set the laptop BIOS to Dedicated GPU only (NVIDIA only)
- Disable the NVIDIA Prime profile (CachyOS) - or whatever the equivalent is in ZorinOS if the bug should appear in Zorin running Wayland on hybrid laptops as well.
- Disable hardware acceleration in the browser (avoids the bug, but results in bad playback performance)
- Run the browser with the flag "--ozone-platform=X11"
- Or possibly the simplest if you do not need Wayland, launch your session under X11 rather than Wayland.
- Or create a brave-flags config file (see below)
Wayland and NVIDIA Prime continue to be error prone
So it appears that utilising Wayland and/or NVIDIA Prime increases the likelihood to encounter bugs.
As a sucker for punishment, I'm still keen on Wayland.
And I still need to report the issue, if it hasn't been already.
I was busy today messing about with UrBackup image restores, so didn't have time.
Stay well! And thanks for the update and warnings about our once-upon-a-time friends in BigTech.
Update: Really good set-and-forget work-around
(!! The following may break or confuse your windowrules in Hyprland. If not running Hyprland, you should be fine.)
Using Brave browser as a example
create the file:
~/.config/brave-flags.conf
and put the following content into it:
--enable-features=UseOzonePlatform
--ozone-platform=x11
The config file above supplies the flags to the Brave browser without requiring typing into the command prompt every time:
Brave --ozone-platform=X11
Update B: Read a bit about what Ozone does - it's a decoupling layer between Chrome and the underlying compositor
allowing Chrome to run on either X11 or Wayland
Firefox doesn't use Ozone, but provides a similar flag (variable) that allows Firefox to interact with either X11 or Wayland. The current default for Firefox is Wayland.
The root cause is likely a broken relationship between Wayland, NVIDIA PRIME, and NVIDIA's implementation of hardware acceleration in the Open 595 driver (the version I'm running).
So, to avoid the Wayland/NVIDIA hardware acceleration issue you can tell Chromium browser to use X11 via:
- the launch option "--ozone-platform=X11", or use a config file
And for Firefox Mozilla-based browsers, add the following to your .profile or .bashrc config file
- export MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=0
The exported variable will effect all Mozilla-based browsers launched in your session.
References:
- Chromium Ozone-GBM explained · Tiago Vignatti
- Chromium, ozone, wayland and beyond | Antonio Gomes' activities
Caveat
I'm not a software developer nor an engineer so be gentle if I'm off base on this. My explanations present my current understanding and theories based upon what I've read and observed through tinkering repeatedly with settings and looking through logs.
I'm sure you understand that Joe. I'm putting in this caveat in case anyone else wants to put this dilettante in his place.
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I agree with you. The considerably problem is the Wayland desktop combined with Nvidia GPUs.
And disabling the intel GPU and the prioritization of the Nvidia Chip is the right solution. Also think about to disable secure boot and TMP chip etc pp. The mainboard has to know that there are no MS components to support so it can work fully concentrated on Linux.... 
The Brave Browser seems often to have or to make issues ..... I'm only using firefox since 27 years now. Sure it might be the most secure one in every use, but it's better than Edge, Safari or some beta programs.
If your laptop has an option in the BIOS to support Windows 10 or something else, you have to disable it too.
To go with X11 I think is the best way to get rid of the hardest problems.
Have a nice evening!
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Why Hyprland behaviour changes when apps switch to xWayland (X11)
I just logged in to share I figured out why Hyprland changes behaviour when forcing browsers to run as X11 rather than Wayland.
The two compositors use different formats to describe Window (app) titles and classes which in turn break pattern matching.
Therefore I need to have pattern matching in place for both Wayland and X11 for Hyprland windowsrules to behave.
And yes, the simple life would be to run with NVIDIA Optimus (hybrid mode) turned off in the BIOS, combined with X11, but I'm a glutton for punishment. 
The same app but running under Wayland vs X11
Under Wayland:
Window 562e6ef23150 -> web.whatsapp.com:
class: brave-web.whatsapp.com__-Default
title: web.whatsapp.com
initialClass: brave-web.whatsapp.com__-Default
initialTitle: WhatsApp Web
pid: 341130
xwayland: 0
Under X11 (xWayland):
Window 562e6ef23150 -> web.whatsapp.com:
class: WebApp-WhatsApp0664
title: web.whatsapp.com
initialClass: WebApp-WhatsApp0664
initialTitle: web.whatsapp.com_/
pid: 310503
xwayland: 1
pinned: 0
fullscreen: 0
fullscreenClient: 0
On second thought, rather than making my Hyprland configuration that much more complicated, I think I'll just turn off Optimus in the BIOS.
Good evening to you as well!
P.S. Of course, the titles would match in this one instance. For most of today, the title changes depending upon whether I launch the WhatsApp web app before or after Brave itself.
I know.... too much detail.
Nite!
I said I was fine with it, but...
I managed to create Hyprland rules that will accommodate both Wayland and X11 for my web apps.
windowrule = match:class ^(brave-mail.proton.+)$, tag +email # match Wayland
windowrule = match:title ^(mail.+), tag +email, float = off # match xWayland (X11)
windowrule = match:title ^(WhatsApp Web)$, tag +im, float = off # match Wayland
windowrule = match:class ^(WebApp-WhatsApp.+)$, tag +im, float = off # match xWayland (X11)
windowrule = match:title ^(Brave)$, tag +browser
Time for sleep 
Next Day
And this is why people opt for the stability of ZorinOS over CachyOS.
I've posted my first bug report to CachyOS after finding I could no longer lock my desktop in Hyprland. This is life on the bleeding edge. 
Very cool to be able to go straight to the source code. Within hours the community was on top of the bug. I'm hoping ArchLinux will issue a fix in the next day or so. In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can recompile hypridle myself using the prior version of the faulty library.
And yes, I go by many names: Hungry Pooch here, Impeccable Tuna at CachyOS.
And this is very cool!
I manually recompiled the problem binary fixing the problem until the official fix is released
I’ve figured out how to re-compile hypridle on my own fixing the issue whilst waiting for the official fixed binary.
With a working system snapshot to restore my system config if it all went horribly wrong, I did the following:
sudo pacman -S hyprland-protocols
sudo pacman -S cmake
git clone https://github.com/hyprwm/hypridle.git\ncd hypridle
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
cmake –build build –config Release -j$(nproc)
sudo cmake –install build
sudo reboot now
After the reboot, screen locking is again working in Hyprland.
This is the first time I’ve ever built from source to fix an issue. Very cool.
I’ll remove my manually built binary as soon as I see the official ArchLinux binary published to the Cachy repos.
Linux is my new favourite toy! 
And it all started with Zorin OS 
But then, a far simpler approach would have been...
Downgrading the updated binary that broke the dependency.
sudo downgrade sdbus-cpp
You learn something every day.
And within 48 hours...
the developer has released the fix with the CachyOS maintainers marking the old version out-of-date.
Linux!
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Genius!
You as a crack got started all to move on and configuring a bash fix to get rid of Wayland and Hyprland issues. Great!
so yess, Zorin OS as a start was no bad decision to make. So I did.
And for standard users we can recommend Zorin OS and Mint as well as Cachy OS and Nobara für power users and gamers.
Microsoft just spread the news that they will integrate every play console and app using Microsoft resources to Azur Cloud! So even when you're playing on android smartphone or iOS you need a pay account.
And Ping I got an message on my phone to lock in on Onedrive/365/Outlook to continue to play....
I decided to delete all that stuff.
The Revolution will not be prompted
Well done, Joe, for just deleting and not putting up with Microsoft's forced Azure integration.
I cannot believe BigTech's dystopian vision for humanity.
NVIDIA's CEO has proclaimed the end of personal computing.
Apparently we are to pay a subscription to access content and compute that they control and curate, all whilst entrusting our credit card to their agents to purchase goods from their sponsors.
We need not worry our pretty little heads. Just chew the cud.
I hope Linux and OpenSource will keep home computing alive. It's been my hobby since I was 12 years old.
But without any hardware available... 
Whatever happens, one thing is for sure: I'll never buy another product from NVIDIA again.
In other news...
I'm gaming in native Wayland again and it works brilliantly
With changes I made these past couple of days, I'm now playing my game on native Wayland and it feels better than X11. It is absolutely smooth and effortless.
The key was setting up environment variables to change how my game, Wayland rendering, and the GPU interact.
These are the two key articles:
I cannot emphasise how smooth the game runs now - even in a window. It's running exactly how Wayland claims it should.
I made a few other changes as well, such as:
- switched to GEProton (CachyOSProton's latest update made my game unplayable)
- removed a flatpak app along with related, redundant NVIDIA flatpak modules, thereby simplifying my configuration
- complete removal and reinstall of CachyOS optimised GPU drivers (595.71.05 open)
- I've left Optimus(Intel/NVIDIA hybrid) turned off in the BIOS - a battle for another day
These Environment Variables go to prove the old adage:
RTFM! 
Revisit optimising my game on ZorinOS running under Wayland
Now that I've finally realised what appears to be the Wayland promise of secure, silky smooth gameplay, I'm going to try to duplicate my Wayland configuration in ZorinOS. If successful, I'll create a post to share with the forum. I plan to keep to ZorinOS best practices and default configurations as much as possible.
Hopefully it will just be a matter of setting environment variables, configuring optimal proton settings, and assuring the NVIDIA modules are installed cleanly.
Another Benefit: Broken YouTube is now working under Wayland
The Environment variables also fixed YouTube so I am again running my browsers under Wayland
I think the key variables were:
env = GBM_BACKEND,nvidia-drm
env = NVD_BACKEND,direct
The variables instruct the Graphics Buffer Manager (GBM) to redirect from Wayland's default route (Mesa), and instead use the Nvidia DRM (Direct Rendering Manager).
Likewise, the second variable tells Nvidia to use direct rendering to the GPU, rather than going through Wayland's Mesa rendering.
Ironically, these tweaks are making the Wayland session behave like X11 by forcing direct rendering on NVIDIA rather than going through Wayland's rendering pipeline.
Unfortunately, this appears to be the best we can do given Nvidia is forcing their way of doing things upon us.
Preserving the configuration now that Wayland Gaming is working properly
For fear of things breaking again, I am now in the habit of creating BTRFS Snapshots so I can switch back to a known working system configuration. If a change or update breaks things, I can revert easily.
Chezmoi for dot file configuration management
Likewise, I've started using a solution called Chezmoi to backup and manage my user environment configuration dot files to my locally hosted Gitea (Git) server.
It's very cool.
I'm logging bugs and issues within Gitea, so if I break something, I can review the commit history and revert.
Finally, I'm also performing file backups using open-source UrBackup along with Proxmox scheduled VM backups.
Microsoft Exodus t-minus one month
I'm giving myself one more month to disassociate myself from my hotmail account, then it is goodbye to Microsoft.
The NVIDIA video above has scared me of what is coming next.
Screenshot of Gitea and BTRFS (Snapshots) Assistant
A couple screenshots of my snapshot and configuration management strategies.
Everything is hosted on my home network using Docker and Proxmox.
Q: What are you going to use for a phone as the singularity takes over?
I'm currently using an iPhone, but Google and Android appear to be taking a similar direction.
And later that evening...
I was right to make restore points and configuration backups.
I managed to mess up the performance whilst experimenting with kernel settings, and couldn't get the system back to how I had it configured.
Restoring from system snapshot and reapplying settings fixed everything.
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well, i agree 100 percent!
Microsoft is a dangerous decision now!
Since Apple decided to open their servers to Palantir it's the same thing!
And Android is on the way to make the same move. But if you're using nextcloud, foldersync, k9 mail, tasks, aCalendar+, memories and davx5 on android, google can't touch you an your data!
At least it's comming to go to F-Droid on android smartphones to get full open source. the community is already on the way. think another 2 years maybe.
android 17 seams to be a scamsystem.....
I appreciate your work on wayland and hyprland with positiv results.
great work!
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Hey Joe,
Here's the latest from this week.
Palantir and BigTech
Not having researched deeply the "why" behind Apple, Microsoft, etc. opening their doors to Palantir, I wonder if it has to do with obtaining government contracts.
If Palantir is embedding itself in militarys and government agencies, BigTech may need follow suit to acquire government contracts.
The other reason may be that Palantir has made itself the de-facto gateway into an AI-powered global surveillance community.
Again, I need to do some reading from credible sources to figure out the "why" behind Palantir's rise and the "why" behind BigTech jumping on the bandwagon. Both the public relations sanitised "why", and the true "why" driving the industry (£££).
I'm under no illusion that surveillance to control and manipulate user experience for profit is a primary driver for most everything.
We are cattle to do as we are told. And should we not, the nefarious convenience of agents will help direct our attention and money to where it needs to go.
In other news...
I've been using Safing I/O's Portmaster to locally filter traffic on my main laptop. It's really good for cutting off BigTech traffic in real time.
Have a look.
Warning: It can be quite daunting. Lots of dials and knobs.
Portmaster by Safing I/O
Safing IO Portmaster - Resist Network Surveillance
Filter out BigTech
Filter out connectivity to BigTech in real time by simply checking a box within Portmaster to allow/disallow traffic.
I keep the Portmaster UI running in a window off to the side of my browser when I'm having a tinfoil hat day.
Monitor and filter traffic by source/destination country
Prevent DNS Bypassing by apps
Prevent apps and browsers from bypassing Portmaster DNS monitoring/filtering - configured globally or by browser
Set rules globally or by application
For example, allow Brave browser to use its own Secure DNS settings, whilst blocking other DNS bypassing apps globally.
The power of this filtering is that you can block all BigTech globally, then only enable connectivity as needed per app such as when browsing a BigTech associated website (e.g., YouTube) for a short time.
Once finished, disable connectivity as needed.
Home Network: Pihole with Unbound
I've also implemented Pihole with Unbound on my home network which in effect filters traffic through Pihole's DNS blocking, then upstreams requests via Unbound. Unbound acts as a TLS encryption gateway and local cache for DNS upstream requests to my trusted, privacy-oriented, third-party DNS provider.
This keeps DNS Lookups from all devices hidden from my ISP.
Microsoft Exodus
Despite my previous proclamation, I haven't really made much progress since I posted my intentions to finish with them within a month. 
Community Give-Back
I'm going to try to take a day a week to give back to the community by creating something useful to share.
Today I'm going to take my Wayland CachyOS learnings and attempt to apply them to ZorinOS. If all goes well, I'll create a separate post in the ZorinOS Forum to share what I found made my game run well under native Wayland.
Easier said than done as avoiding distraction is not my strong suit. 
Then, later that same day...
Boom! Setting the Environment Variables did the trick!
I've applied the same environment variables to ZorinOS as recommended for Hyprland and the game now runs buttery smooth under ZorinOS Wayland's desktop as well.
Within /etc/default/grub, added two NVIDIA.DRM parameters to the end of the Linux cmd line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvidia-drm.fbdev=1"
and within /etc/environment, added the following variables:
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia
GBM_BACKEND=nvidia-drm
__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia
Before sharing the tweaks, I'm going to see if there is a friendly way of making the changes that doesn't involve sudo-ing at the command prompt.
After changing the grub config, it is necessary to run:
sudo update-grub
then reboot.
Also, like my CachyOS installation, I'm using the NVIDIA 595 Open driver. This latest driver is now available to install via the ZorinOS Software & Updates app.
Oh! And lest I forget. I run GE-Proton10-34 under Steam compatibility with the following proton flags set at game launch:
MANGOHUD=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_PRIORITY_HIGH=1 PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 %command%
Goverlay/MangoHud
MangoHud isn't displaying GPU Stats, but I'll figure it out... eventually.
If MangoHud GPU Stats display in Wayland on CachyOS, then there must be a way of doing it in ZorinOS. 
Environment Variables: not a silver bullet 
Whilst the game runs fantastic, the Steam interface flickers and can be unusable unless in Big or Small screen modes.
I need to continue digging to figure out the root cause.
If it works in CachyOS, then it can work in ZorinOS. I just need to figure out what is missing or conflicting.
I may try running an alternative desktop or just a window manager (Hyprland) on top of ZorinOS to eliminate something in the Gnome desktop.
In summary, the game runs great and smooth, but not everything is happy on the Gnome desktop - in particular, the Steam interface.
It's a common problem in the forums.
Aside from the Steam interface and MangoHud GPU stats not appearing, the Gnome desktop experience is great!
I think this may come down to the configuration of 32-bit drivers as I believe Steam makes use of 32-bit code.
And I must keep in mind
So I've reset Zorin back to its defaults from when I originally installed it.
The game plays perfectly fine using the NVIDIA 580 drivers (without requiring 595) without the variables in place.
So, I may be seeing massive gains because "I want to see" massive gains.
The issue with MangoHud and the flickering Steam client remains. I will figure it out.
And I do think the environment variables make a difference, just not a massive difference. In CachyOS, the variables made the game go from playing well to feeling buttery smooth, but that is not all of the time.
There are many variables at play.
I'm like a bloodhound. I'll get there.
Steam client runs under Xwayland
mike@zb16:/etc$ xlsclients
zb16 gsd-xsettings
zb16 ibus-x11
zb16 steamwebhelper
zb16 mutter-x11-frames
zb16 steam
From what I've read in forums, Steam has a chromium dependency that requires running under Xwayland. The hunt continues...
Regardless, given that Steam can run in a CachyOS Wayland session (Xwayland or not) means there must be a way of configuring the Steam client or ZorinOS to play nice with each other under Wayland.
Steam - what I believe to be the root failure
[2026-05-30 08:10:03] Browser - launching child process with: /proc/self/exe --type=renderer --crashpad-handler-pid=41014 --enable-crash-reporter=, --change-stack-guard-on-fork=enable --enable-chrome-runtime --user-data-dir=/home/mike/.steam/debian-installation/config/htmlcache --user-agent-product=Valve Steam Client --force-device-scale-factor=1 --disablehighdpi --buildid=1779918128 --steamid=0 --valve-initial-threadpool-size=20
[2026-05-30 08:10:03] Browser - launching child process with: /proc/self/exe --type=renderer --crashpad-handler-pid=41014 --enable-crash-reporter=, --change-stack-guard-on-fork=enable --enable-chrome-runtime --user-data-dir=/home/mike/.steam/debian-installation/config/htmlcache --user-agent-product=Valve Steam Client --force-device-scale-factor=1 --disablehighdpi --buildid=1779918128 --steamid=0 --valve-initial-threadpool-size=20
[2026-05-30 08:10:03] SteamBrowser-'data:text/': WasHidden 1: (0, 0) 1x1
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] SteamBrowser-'data:text/': Applying safe browser shutdown workaround
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Webhelper: An X Error occurred on display 0x5ad630425bf0
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] X Error of failed request: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Major opcode of failed request: 10 (X_UnmapWindow)
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Resource id in failed request: 0x1c0001b
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Serial number of failed request: 831
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Webhelper: An X Error occurred on display 0x5ad630425bf0
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] X Error of failed request: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Major opcode of failed request: 7 (X_ReparentWindow)
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Resource id in failed request: 0x1c0001b
[2026-05-30 08:11:44] Serial number of failed request: 832
The above is the smoking gun. 
NVIDIA Driver 610 has come out for CachyOS this week.
- Linux is such a moving target. Here I was thinking 595 was still bleeding edge.
- I'm looking forward to seeing what improves in 610.
- P.S. I'm still battling with the Steam client. Game runs great in a Zorin Wayland session, the Steam client on the other hand...
In case it needs to be said (again)...
I apologise for being overly enthusiastic in my posts.
I can become overly optimistic about my capabilities and bite off more than I can chew.
Turns out I'm subject to hallucinating as much as AI.
Now that I have my game running great under ZorinOS Wayland, I'm actually spending a lot more time booted into Wayland. ZorinOS is so polished as a distribution.
Inspired by Hyprland, I've tweaked the ZorinOS desktop to my liking and it is quite beautiful in a simplistic way.
Clean and functional are the words that come to mind.
Steam on ZorinOS Wayland
I've settled with running Steam in "small mode" so none of the problematic (Chrome Extended Framework) web elements are exposed. I can use my web browser for looking through the Steam store.
The problem is that Valve is using an older version of Chrome Extended Framework (CEF) with a flickering bug that isn't fixed until a later version of CEF.
Whilst there could be work-arounds for it, Valve hardcoded the graphic settings for CEF which results in overrides being ignored.
Wayland Gaming
The game continues to run great and smooth under ZorinOS Wayland.
The key is using GE-Proton with the appropriate Proton flags. I'm not terribly sure if my environmental variables make a huge difference as I think GE-Proton does most of the heavy lifting of taming Wayland.
GPU Stats not showing in Mangohud
The fix is provided by @scottyPee : Installing mangohud - #7 by scottyPee
Thank you, @scottyPee 
Well, to opportunistically grab this statement for my own purposes...
Both you and @Joe have been accurate and factual - and have not strayed from the effects of certain global affairs directly on computing and GnuLinux.
Let's make sure that we stick to the merit of actions, decisions and affects without attaching them to labels for broader groups of people.
We have members from many different countries and with many different personal views. Keeping the conversation centered on specific policies, products, companies, and facts helps ensure that everyone feels comfortable participating.
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You're so right. Apologies for emoting over past relationships - tech or otherwise.
I'll handle myself with more discretion from here on out to assure everyone feels included and welcome in the community.
Apologies again.
And thank you for the gentle coaxing.
Ashamedly, as I go down my rabbit holes, I forget there is a world of other people out there.
None needed; that was not a formal mod note. As I read through the thread, I did take note of a few terms that separate groups, so wanted to ensure we stay grounded in that: We are all in this together.
Both of you stayed on points that are factually accurate and did not stray from the direct effects on GnuLinux/ Computing.
Speaking as a citizen of the USA, I say plainly that it is gratifying to see a shift where arrogance and power hunger are being opposed and stood up to, at long last.
And that momentum is gaining to encourage free market.
This is good for FOSS.
Not so much for Meta or Facebook.
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