Latest Nvidia Drivers+Kernel Break XFCE Desktop

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Hi guys, I just made a post about this

https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/window-flickering-with-nvidia-590-580-and-xfce-4-18-4-20/360795

but I thought I would make a new topic, because the issue is actually extremely significant, like a critical severity issue, and it’s not clear at all how to go about resolving the issue.

Right now, the latest Nvidia drivers being distributed all cause the xfce desktop environment to completely breakdown, unless the users disable compositing, or alter xfwm like with one of these methods..

sudo xfwm4 --vblank=off --replace

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/vblank_mode -t string -s “off” --create

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/vblank_mode -s xpresent

# xfconf command supposed to make it permanent

# restart xfwm (or relogin/reboot)

xfwm4 --replace &

So with these workarounds, disabling compositing breaks its functionality completely, or reconfiguring xfwm4 (the window manager) breaks it’s functionality completely.

So they aren’t really suitable, for those of us who are using xfce, which is probably the most popular desktop environment for Gnu/Linux besides gnome/kde, and which for gamers offers the best performance/stability/modern capabilities (it’s the best for gamers)

Apparently the issue is tracked on nvidia’s internal bug tracker…

“Hi all,
The XFCE desktop blinking issue is being tracked on an internal bug - 5758240”

The issue (of Nvidia completely breaking the xfce desktop environment) is present in both of the…

Current production branch release: 580.126.18 (x86_64 / aarch64)

Current new feature branch release: 590.48.01 (x86_64 / aarch64)

Which are the only ones I could identify that work with the latest linux kernel (6.19) so if we go to use the latest linux kernel, we are stuck using the broken nvidia drivers.

I just tried, for example, to use a lower version of the 580 driver, that is reportedly unaffected by the issue, and it wont build against 6.19

The gitlab link for the specific issue for xfce: https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/xfwm4/-/issues/892

(devs say they can’t do anything about it(it’s an nvidia problem))

Reportedly from the xfce forum…

“from what i observed:

  1. The regression seems to occur for all GPUs supported by the drivers.

  2. The regression started in driver version: 580.119.02

  3. Driver version: 580.105.08 is a safe option to use.

  4. The regression is present and unchanged in the 590 beta drivers.”

The issue began in 580.119.02, and 580.105.08 is unaffected by the issue. I managed to test and discover, that with the 6.19 kernel, and the most recent 590 driver, the issue was present in both xfce 4.18 as well as 4.20 which are major stable releases for xfce.

So I wanted to find out, with hopefully a more coherent topic, if there’s any information Nvidia or it’s users can provide that would be helpful… such as

any other workarounds to the problem?

Or any idea of when nvidia will release a driver that fixes the issue?

or maybe a patch?

(also any other confirmations, or reports of the issue + basic system information would be helpful…)

Because as it stands right now, the current drivers being released/supported here from Nvidia’s website all, really basically, completely break the xfce desktop environment.

I understand that generally distributions, are hesitant to release the latest software, and so the vast majority of users are currently unaffected by the issue, but for those of us who track the latest software, our systems are completely broken right now by Nvidia. It would helpful at least, to get some kind of feedback or information about the fact.

2

So again, I just wanted to raise awareness about this issue, because it isn’t clear that on Nvidia’s side, the issue is understood as a critical severity issue

Doing a quick search around Gnu/Linux forums quickly turns up relevant results all over the place, about users reporting the same issue with the Nvidia drivers + xfce (The latest Nvidia drivers break the xfce desktop environment)

These are all recent posts that seem to report the same problem on a variety of different distributions. It’s like I said, xfce is the most popular desktop environment (on xorg) next to gnome/kde so this issue is extremely widespread, and right now as of 2/19/26, we have no real solutions from Nvidia as far as I can tell, and the issue has persisted for over two months.

This issue, of the latest Nvidia drivers (580+, 590+) completely breaking the xfce desktop environment is affecting users everywhere

Fedora

Endeavour (Arch linux)

Manjaro (more stable Arch linux(less rolling))

Void Linux

Xfce forums

Ubuntu

Nvidia forums

So again, it isn’t clear to me, whether or not the issue is fully understood, or that there is any resolution underway, so I wanted to bring up the issue, and expand upon it - that it isn’t a simple graphical glitch, it is really like a critical severity issue, that seriously breaks the xfce desktop environment, because of the latest Nvidia drivers alone.

3

Ok, so for anyone looking for a solution to this problem I searched around and found that the latest Nvidia driver for linux which is reportedly unaffected this issue on xfce, 580.105.08 is still hosted by nvidia on this page (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/results/257493/)

I’m not sure if it will build against the 6.19 kernel, they tend to be version dependent, so the driver version and kernel version have to align, but I just built an older version of 580 against the next most recent/stable kernel 6.18 from kernel.org so at least that should work for you https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v6.x/linux-6.18.13.tar.xz

It’s not a complete solution however, we are still looking forward to Nvidia resolving the issue in later releases, and finally a real “geforce” experience, but not with windows… but with linux : D