I'm dual booting Pop_OS and Windows 11 for now while l try things out. I went with Pop_OS for the NVIDIA drivers, since I have a NVIDIA card. Installation went smoothly, but setup is where things started to get a little weird.
I have 2 monitors, a main 360hz monitor and a secondary 165hz monitor. I seem to be able to have them both working at the same time in Windows 11 without issue, but in Pop_OS, setting the refresh rate to 360hz on the first monitor causes both displays to stop working properly. The 360hz monitor will stop displaying picture all-together, and the 165hz monitor will start flickering wildly. Turning off the second monitor brings the 360hz's image back, but then I'm down a monitor. Also, if I set the refresh rate to anything lower than 360hz, they'll both work. I'd like to still be able to use it at the native refresh rate, but I can't seem to find any other solutions or anyone else who seems to have had this same issue.
My second (slightly less annoying) issue is that I can't seem to use HDR in games. Is this normal, or is there something I can do to bring back support?
Also, if Pop_OS isn't the way to go, please let me know! I tried Nobara first, but immediately had issues with the displays locking up and flickering before I even got it installed.
many linux distributions still use the older method of getting things to appear on screen.
they rely on a program called x11, development on x11 has stopped in favour of a new system called wayland. x11 does not support running different displays at different refresh rates, wayland does.
but nvidia doesn't support wayland very well yet. you can use it, but it might be more prone to crashes when using an nvidia gpu. i still recommend trying it.
usually you will find a menu at one of the corners of the screen before logging in to your desktop. here you will usually find something like "desktop name (xorg)" and "desktop name (wayland)".
but some software hides the wayland option from nvidia users, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a guide on how to make this option appear if it is hidden though.
HDR support is still a work in progress. Afaik it's not part of any official standard for display technology on linux yet, but KDE Plasma 6 has experimental support and Valve is actively working on support.
KDE Plasma 6 is currently only available on distributions that push updates more frequently, without testing said updates thoroughly, like arch linux and some derivatives. the pop os developers have also promised to support HDR in their upcoming desktop environment called cosmic, which might still take a while to be released