Ubuntu
nvidia-graphics-drivers-510 package

  1. Bug #1960621
  2. Comment #7

Comment 7 for bug 1960621

Revision history for this message
Martin Wimpress  (flexiondotorg) wrote (last edit ): Re: Nvidia 510 drivers result in failure to start GUI on GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

This issue is only reproducible when Marco (the MATE Window Manager) is built with Xpresent support and Marco's compositing manager is enabled. This has been the default configuration in Debian & Ubuntu packaging of Marco for some years. I am not sure if this issue is due to a regression in NVIDIAs driver or if Marcos Xpresent support is at fault.

That said, the reports of this issue I've seen elsewhere (NVIDIA forums, Linux Mint forums, upstream MATE Desktop GitHub) all indicate this problem is only observed with MATE Desktop.

A few solutions are available:

 - Apply a gschema override to disable Marco's compositing manager. Not a great option since it degrades the user experience and it can be easily re-enabled via the Control Center leading to a non-functioning desktop session.
 - Upstream are discussing adding a gsettings option to disable Xpresent. Again, this could be overridden by a user and leads to a broken desktop session.
 - I am investigating building Marco without Xpresent, which will retain the compositing manager functionality.
 - By coincidence, I have created a wrapper for Marco that uses the picom compositor several weeks ago. This is presented as an alternative Window Manager option in MATE Tweak and currently shipping in Jammy.

I will research the options more thoroughly before choosing a way forward.