Need help configuring graphics drivers and desktop enviornment on Silverblue

[novice-wizzard (Andrew Chapin)]

I recently built a new desktop computer and decided to give Fedora SilverBlue a spin. I installed a few desktop applications using Flathub. Then I started playing around with toolboxes for CLI tools. Finally, I installed gparted using the rpm-ostree tool.

Now I want to ensure I am using the correct AMD GPU drivers for my rx7900xtx and install some alternative desktop environments such as Sway on Wayland. Should I just install the packages using rpm-ostree? Do I need to do anything special for the graphics drivers? Right now I have two displays, but the my OS seems to only detect the one.

I would appreciate any guidance.

Also, can you install GUI application in toolboxes? Was I supposed to install gparted using a toolbox instead of the rpm-ostree?

[mateusrodcosta (Mateus Rodrigues Costa)]

@novice-wizzard

Now I want to ensure I am using the correct AMD GPU drivers for my rx7900xtx and install some alternative desktop environments such as Sway on Wayland. Should I just install the packages using rpm-ostree? Do I need to do anything special for the graphics drivers? Right now I have two displays, but the my OS seems to only detect the one.

I believe it’s already installed.

Intel and AMD GPU drivers come with Mesa, which is installed by default on Fedora. So unless you are on a very recent card which your Mesa doesn’t support fully, you should be ok.

If you had Nvidia drivers, however, you would have to choose between drivers in Mesa (which don’t work very well for newer cards) or the proprietary driver from RPMFusion.

@novice-wizzard

Also, can you install GUI application in toolboxes? Was I supposed to install gparted using a toolbox instead of the rpm-ostree?

I believe you can run GUI apps. And I guess there’s no issues of installing gparted in the toolbox, only thing is I am almost sure it couldn’t get the level of access to the block devices it requires to function.

Just a tip though, consider using a gparted liveCD/liveUSB, you can download it from the website, might save you the trouble if it’s a partition chnage you do once in a while.

[novice-wizzard (Andrew Chapin)]

I know you said the drivers would already be installed by default, but I am running a relatively newer card and my other monitor is not being detected. Do you have any suggestions on how I should troubleshoot my GPU drivers to get my second monitor to display?

[mateusrodcosta (Mateus Rodrigues Costa)]

According to this link support for RDNA 3 (your GPU card architecture) has been added to Mesa 22.3, so ideally you just need to check if you are running at least that.

[mateusrodcosta (Mateus Rodrigues Costa)]

Just checked on my up-to-date Silverblue 37 system and it has those versions:

 mesa-dri-drivers-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-filesystem-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-libEGL-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-libGL-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-libgbm-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-libglapi-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-libxatracker-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-va-drivers-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64
 mesa-vulkan-drivers-22.3.5-1.fc37.x86_64

@novice-wizzard I would recommend either trying to contact the Mesa devs or the sway devs (it seems that that is you DE), I guess you should be able to find them on Matrix.
They should be able to help you troubleshooting and guide you if you need to report a bug.

[novice-wizzard (Andrew Chapin)]

Thanks for the feedback. I double checked my installed mesa packages and you were right; I am running version 22.3.4-1, which should support my card. I guess I will have to look into setting my preferred desktop environment or look into Mutter to fix my dual monitor problem.

Thanks for the help.

[novice-wizzard (Andrew Chapin)]

I do not think the problem is with the desktop environment. I can’t get the other display to show up in Gnome on Xorg or Sway on Wayland. I think this is a driver issue.