I recently moved from Windows to Fedora KDE and have run into several issues. Vivaldi is my primary browser, but on Linux it sometimes becomes extremely sluggish, with stuttering animations, poor responsiveness, and occasional video playback failures. Firefox generally works normally, so I suspect the problem may involve my NVIDIA graphics driver, hardware acceleration, or browser settings.
Video playback is also inconsistent across different websites. I installed the codecs I could find, and I managed to fix a YouTube issue related to ambient lighting, but videos on other sites sometimes play at only a few frames per second without an obvious cause. What should I check to diagnose this?
I also dual-boot Windows because I occasionally need it for game development. Is there any meaningful difference between selecting Windows from the firmware boot menu, such as by pressing F11, and selecting Windows Boot Manager from GRUB?
Finally, I would like to add widgets and other desktop features to KDE. Many guides I find are for GNOME. Can GNOME extensions be used with KDE, and where are the best places to find KDE-compatible widgets and add-ons?
4 Answers
The NVIDIA driver in use is an important detail. Depending on your GPU and Fedora setup, you may be using Nouveau, the proprietary NVIDIA driver, or NVIDIA's proprietary driver with the open kernel module. Check which one is active and whether hardware acceleration is enabled in Vivaldi. Browser lag and choppy video can be caused by a driver mismatch, broken acceleration, or a codec/VA-API configuration issue. Comparing Vivaldi with acceleration enabled and disabled can help narrow it down. It would also help to include your exact GPU model, driver package, display session, and any browser error messages.
GNOME Shell extensions are designed for GNOME and generally cannot be installed as KDE Plasma widgets. KDE has its own widgets, themes, scripts, and add-ons, which you can browse through Plasma's widget installer or the KDE Store. Search specifically for Plasma widgets or KDE add-ons rather than GNOME extensions.
Selecting Windows from the firmware boot menu and selecting Windows Boot Manager in GRUB normally leads to the same Windows EFI loader. GRUB is just handing control over to the firmware's Windows Boot Manager entry, so there is no practical difference beyond which menu you use.
For video problems, check whether the affected sites are using codecs your browser can decode and whether video decoding is happening on the GPU or CPU. Vivaldi's internal settings for hardware acceleration, GPU compositing, and media playback can affect performance. Since the behavior varies by site, comparing the browser's codec information and GPU status on a working site versus a failing one may reveal the difference.
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