do you use Moonlight, Sunshine, SteamLink or something along those lines?

My linux server is wired to the router, but I use SteamLink hardware with 5GHz wifi. I haven’t tried Moonlight & Sunshine, but I have tried a myriad of different hardware running the SteamLink app, but the SteamLink Hardware > RPI 4 > RPI 3 > CCwGTV. For me, the SteamLink hardware has always been reliable enough that I didn’t need to explore other options, but YMMV.

I would strongly recommend that you disable Wayland and continue to use X for various reasons, but the three most important reasons:

• Nvidia and X allow you to inject a custom EDID so an HDMI dongle isn’t necessary `Xconfig: (Option “CustomEDID” “GPU-0.DFP-3:/path/to/edid/file”)
• Wayland doesn’t support disabling V-Sync (it may now), but if not, you really do not want V-Sync enabled when streaming
• XWayland is gonna drop your performance 1-10% depending on the game and situation…

If you end up switching to AMD GPU in the future, you still don’t have to have an HDMI dongle, but the AMD process of injecting an EDID is much less user friendly to the point where you will want an HDMI dongle. :-)

I connect to my server via SSH and if I need to see the screen, RealVNC on my phone… no monitor, keyboard, or mouse connected except when I might want to update the BIOS or something.

SteamOS doesn’t support Nvidia even though Arch does

You misunderstood what I wrote… (I could have worded it better), but I didn’t mean that SteamOS was a viable option; instead, I meant Manjaro (Arch) was a viable option.

Not sure why someone down voted my post as it is technically sound, but to be 100% transparent, I’ve been running a headless linux Fedora server on Nvidia hardware for this very purpose (among others) since 2017.

I would still strongly recommend that you use Ubuntu since that is what you are most comfortable with, but Fedora or Arch is viable as well.

Ease of setup including nvidia drivers

Any mainstream distribution would relatively satisfy this requirement (Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu); however, Fedora might be slightly less amenable since it would require third-party repository RPM Fusion. Don’t get me wrong, it is a real simple process to add, but it can also cause some headaches.

Ease of update via command line (I’m not going to download nvidia drivers from their website to update proprietary drivers)

The best way to install the Nvidia driver is through your distribution’s system package manager. In fact, it is never recommended to download from Nvidia’s website. If you do, you’re flat out doing it the wrong way…

Graphics performance

The graphics performance will mostly be the same since you are using Nvidia and relying less on open source components; however, you still would want a distribution that is updated relatively frequently; therefore, I would suggest Fedora or Ubuntu.

Keep in mind that SteamOS is based on Manjaro (Arch), so I’m sure it would be fine as well, but Arch based distributions are more “rolling” and can experience their own issues.

Fedora has its own quirks as well; therefore, I would recommend hanging back one full release. For example, right now, Fedora 39 is the latest release and that means you should likely install and stay on Fedora 38 until Fedora 40 releases.

Prefer Ubuntu based

Your best option would be to use Ubuntu / Ubuntu LTS

I’ve done some work with AMD and Nvidia that I shan’t disclose more of, but to be totally honest / transparent, my experiences with either of their internal workings was kind of eye opening in a not so good kind of way; however, that isn’t to say I distrust them or their work, because I could say that about several prominent Tech companies that most individuals would ordinarily think the best of. At the end of the day, I don’t think my experiences are 100% representational of an entire company, but after being in the industry for 23+ years… you kind of learn to stay away from that BCBS: if you know you know.

You’re riding the edge too close. Fedora 39 hasn’t even moved to a 6.7 kernel yet – They’re on 6.6.14-200.

If you’re running a newer kernel than the latest released Fedora, you better be a Linux guru or you’re gonna pay with pain, and thats coming from someone with 23+ years experience running / working on Linux and I have an AMD RX 7900 XTX