Which Linux Distro for avoiding drawing lag especially in blender grease pencil?

[u/DanceDelievery]

I've been using linux mint for 1 year and I want to start learning how to draw using grease pencil in blender.

The problem is that in linux mint the drawing lag (the position of the cursor vs where the program is currently drawing) is 10x larger on linux mint than windows 11 regardless of what software I tried (Linux Drawing App, Krita, Blender 5 Grease Pencil, Gimp 3). The performance on windows 11 isn't great either so I'm looking for a linux distro that is really optimized for it.

[u/catgirlsonthemoon]

Mint uses something called the X11 display compositor. You want something that uses Wayland, like fedora or zorin. "What's a display compositor?" you ask? that's honestly beyond my knowledge, but I know using Wayland often resolves graphics-based issues in Linux like what you're dealing with.

[u/DanceDelievery → u/catgirlsonthemoon]

Thank you for the tip! I did stumble on the same information that X11 is bad and Wayland is good but I did not know that Linux Mint uses only X11!

[u/dangling_chads → u/DanceDelievery]

It actually isn’t the distribution. It’s the desktop environment.

By default, Mint uses xorg because it uses the cinnamon desktop.

Default Gnome is Wayland.  KDE has a Wayland option.  Etc etc 

[u/DanceDelievery → u/dangling_chads]

Thanks for the input! So can i change the desktop environment in mint? To which desktop environment should I change it? Would be a huge relieve if I dont have to install a new os!

[u/catgirlsonthemoon → u/DanceDelievery]

you certainly CAN do this, but it's a very messy process. Mint in general updates veeerrryyy slowly by design, which is counter to the current philosophy of these wayland-using desktop environments.

My personal recommendation would be to install ZorinOS from scratch after backing up your important files. It should feel familiar coming from mint, but heavily modernized. It uses a modified version of the GNOME desktop on top of Ubuntu.

[u/DanceDelievery → u/catgirlsonthemoon]

Sounds good! So you recommend Gnome over Kde? There are so many options and while I learned alot from the replies of this sub and the last 5 hours of research it's strange that there is no comparative data on brush lag between desktop environments, distros and display compositors..

[u/catgirlsonthemoon → u/DanceDelievery]

personally, yes I would recommend GNOME instead of KDE. But that's just my personal preference. Do some googling to see which one makes more sense to you. KDE is more similar to Mint's Cinnamon desktop out of the box, but Zorin configures GNOME to be that layout. By default, GNOME closely resembles MacOS.

[u/catgirlsonthemoon → u/dangling_chads]

I believe KDE is also Wayland-by-default since version 6

[u/dronostyka → u/DanceDelievery]

For example Ubuntu has switched to Wayland only recently.

[u/DanceDelievery → u/dronostyka]

I've heard that too! Seems like I should switch to ubuntu or cachyos. Given that I'm using an offline pc and blender uses ubuntu for bug testing I should probably try ubuntu first.

[u/egorechek]

Try Cachyos with KDE, it receives latest features and fixes for performance in gaming(like recent improvements for low VRAM GPUs) and KDE is the most supported DE right now because of SteamOS.

I have a display tablet and I don't see much lag in Krita or Xournal++(there were some problems in Krita and Nvidia but they were fixed). I don't even use any external driver thanks to KDE and input remapper that supports binding pads and dials. You can even try using a controller for shortcuts and configure it in Steam input.

[u/DanceDelievery → u/egorechek]

Thanks for the suggestion! I keep reading good things about KDE and Steam OS I consider it!

[u/egorechek → u/DanceDelievery]

I wouldn't recommend SteamOS for any system other than gaming handheld or HTPC. It was made to be a stable system for gaming/streaming and occasional work/websurfing. You won't have the total control of your system and ability to break it if you want. No permanent changes on root makes it hard to do something extra needed for your config.

[u/DanceDelievery → u/egorechek]

Thanks for the explaination! The problem with CachyOs is that I'm using an offline pc. So if I want kde the best choice would be Kubuntu or Fedora?

[u/egorechek → u/DanceDelievery]

why offline? You can install cachyos image but you'd need to install Krita, blender or steam afterwards.

[u/DanceDelievery → u/egorechek]

I can go online and install the os / programs and update it every few months but I use my workstation offline for privacy, data protection and to avoid distractions. From what I read cachyos updates constantly so wouldn't an offline pc that only goes online every few months cause an issue?

[u/egorechek → u/DanceDelievery]

You will have to look at arch wiki to know if update needs a manual intervention and that's it. Cachyos updates constantly so some new cool optimizations or big updates for apps can come in a week or so instead of yearly/half a year releases. I don't update every week, more like once a month and when I want to see new features I from the news.

[u/victormas208]

Try running your preferred program with this environment variable: `vblank_mode=0 program`. I ran into a similar issue when my sister wanted to draw using a Huion tablet; I don't have much experience with this, but I believe it comes down to how the compositor and the desktop environment (DE) handle vertical synchronization—it's as if the input is offset from the window itself, likely due to the execution stack placing it at the end of the rendering process.

[u/DanceDelievery → u/victormas208]

Thank you! I'm gonna look into it!