I'm dual booting Pop_OS and Windows 11 for now while l try things out. I went with Pop_OS for the NVIDIA drivers, since I have a NVIDIA card. Installation went smoothly, but setup is where things started to get a little weird.
I have 2 monitors, a main 360hz monitor and a secondary 165hz monitor. I seem to be able to have them both working at the same time in Windows 11 without issue, but in Pop_OS, setting the refresh rate to 360hz on the first monitor causes both displays to stop working properly. The 360hz monitor will stop displaying picture all-together, and the 165hz monitor will start flickering wildly. Turning off the second monitor brings the 360hz's image back, but then I'm down a monitor. Also, if I set the refresh rate to anything lower than 360hz, they'll both work. I'd like to still be able to use it at the native refresh rate, but I can't seem to find any other solutions or anyone else who seems to have had this same issue.
My second (slightly less annoying) issue is that I can't seem to use HDR in games. Is this normal, or is there something I can do to bring back support?
Also, if Pop_OS isn't the way to go, please let me know! I tried Nobara first, but immediately had issues with the displays locking up and flickering before I even got it installed.
I recently bought an AMD card just to not have to deal with Linux NVIDIA nonsense anymore. I know not everyone can be in a situation that allows them to do this. But if you can, and if you don’t want to wait on the hope that all the NVIDIA issues will be resolved when explicit sync finally hits all the distro repos and the NVIDIA driver (it’s going to still take some months), I’d advise going AMD.
I’ve had nothing but buttery smoothness since switching, running Wayland with two displays at different refresh rates, and gaming works phenomenally well with no frame loss that I can tell and no stuttering/tearing.
If you are more patient than I and continue with NVIDIA, I wish you all the luck and hope the trickling in of the various fixes and libraries and drivers happen rapidly.