RTX 5060 Ti Wayland Black Screen: Temporary X11 Solution for Zorin 17.3

I recently got an NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti, released a few months ago, but couldn’t get it working out of the box on Zorin 17.3 until now. Manually installing the driver using NVIDIA’s .run file consistently led to a black screen due to Wayland incompatibilities. While it worked flawlessly on Windows 10, Zorin 17.3 was a challenge. Here’s a polished, temporary solution for anyone facing this issue. Note: You’ll need to use X11 for now.

  1. Add NVIDIA Repository
    Open a terminal and run:
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
    sudo apt update

  2. Install Open Kernel Driver
    Install the driver with open kernel modules:
    sudo apt install nvidia-driver-575-open nvidia-utils-575 nvidia-settings

  3. Configure Xorg
    Create a configuration file for the NVIDIA driver:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
sudo bash -c 'cat > /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf' << EOF
Section "Device"
Identifier "NVIDIA Card"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce RTX 5060 Ti"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection
EOF

  1. Disable Wayland
    Force X11 by disabling Wayland:
    sudo bash -c 'echo "WaylandEnable=false" > /etc/gdm3/custom.conf'

  2. Reboot
    Apply changes and start the driver:
    sudo reboot

  3. Verify Installation
    Check the GPU status:
    nvidia-smi
    glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

Hope it helps!


Welcome to the Forum!

On Zorin 17, it is commonly recommended to use X11 instead of Wayland with Nvidia Graphics because the Wayland Implementation isn't on a Level for a good use with Nvidia.

When You switch on the Login Screen to Xorg, it shouldn't be neccessarry to disable Wayland entirely. Of Course, You can do it if You want.

Moved to Tutorials & Guides

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8 posts were split to a new topic: Wayland, XWayland, X11 and the future