r/archlinux Jul 04 '18

FAQ - Read before posting

577 Upvotes

First read the Arch Linux FAQ from the wiki

Code of conduct

How do I ask a proper question?

Smart Questions
XYProblem
Please follow the standard list when giving a problem report.

What AUR helper should I use?

There are no recommended AUR helpers. Please read over the wiki entry on AUR helpers. If you have a question, please search the subreddit for previous questions.

If your AUR helper breaks know how to use makepkg manually.

I need help with $derivativeDistribution

Use the appropriate support channel for your distribution. Arch is DIY distribution and we expect you to guide us through your system when providing support. Using an installer defeats this expectation.

Why was the beginners guide removed?

It carried a lot of maintenance on the wiki admin as it duplicated a lot of information, and everyone wanted their addition included. It was scrapped for a compact model that largely referenced the main wiki pages.

Why Arch Linux?

Arch compared to other distributions

Follow the wiki. Random videos are unsupported.

<plug>Consider getting involved in Arch Linux!</plug>


r/archlinux Jun 16 '26

DISCUSSION AUR Megathread. All discussion on it goes here.

499 Upvotes

As the title says, I am locking all other AUR posts and don't want to see any new posts.

2/8/26 - putting this back up. All dialogue will continue here please.


r/archlinux 2h ago

SUPPORT Minimize Thunderbird on Gnome 50

4 Upvotes

Hello,

Is there a way to minimize Thunderbird on the tray on Gnome 50? I use the AppIndicator extension.


r/archlinux 3h ago

SUPPORT I ruined my arch. Please help me bring my system back

3 Upvotes

I had dual booted arch linux and linux mint on my PC. A few weeks ago I had to do a job which required windows and that could be done through windows only. With no option being left, I decided to put windows on my PC. With my arch linux open, I partitioned the arch linux root directory to create some space for windows, which was really stupid decision which ruined my arch. Now whenever I try to open arch linux, I get the following error:

[FAILED] Failed to start File System Check .1ad768-....
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for /sysroot.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Initrd Root File System.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Mountpoints Configured in the Real Root.
You are in emergency mode. After logging in, type "journalctl -xb" to view system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, or "exit" to continue bootup. 

Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.
See sulogin(8) man page for more details.

Press Enter to continue.

I decided to live boot USB and tried to chroot. When I tried to mount the root partition, I got the following message.

mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda3, missing codepage or helper program, or other error. 
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call. 

I typed dmesg | grep 'sda3' and got the following output

[86.090736] EXT4-fs (sda3): bad geometry: block count 143546504 exceeds size of device (78643200 blocks) 

I do not know what should I do from here. I know what I did was very stupid. Is there any way I can recover my system or at least recover files from home directory? Please help me.


r/archlinux 53m ago

SUPPORT When rebooting the system often hangs for minutes saying "The system will reboot now"

Upvotes

This happens like half of the time, otherwise the booting process is very fast. But why does it sometimes get stuck on this black screen "The system will reboot now!" I have no idea why this is happening or how to fix it. Sometimes It can take 5+ minutes!!


r/archlinux 1d ago

DISCUSSION Why so much hate for systemd?

171 Upvotes

I see very often that people show so much disgust whenever they talk or hear "systemd". However whenever I ask them why they feel so strongly about it, their response is mostly vague like it doesn't follow the Unix philosophy, it's a monolith.... I can't digest that the reason people show so much disgust for it is just that it doesn't follow the Unix philosophy.


r/archlinux 14h ago

QUESTION Switching to Linux

9 Upvotes

im using a debloaded custom OS for WIndows, but im soon going to get a laptop for college, and windows 11 just wont cut it, though ill need the laptop for College and work, so is there any ways i could get most adobe apps to run with gpu passthrough, Clip studio to run?

Optional but if possible it would be nice to get Fortnite too


r/archlinux 1d ago

QUESTION x86_64-v3 any news?

55 Upvotes

I remember that a few years ago there was some discussion about implementing x86_64-v3 in Arch, but other things took priority in the pipeline.

Are there any updates on this, or has the idea been dropped? I’m aware that it’s relatively easy to use third-party repositories like CachyOS or ALHP, but I’d prefer to stick with the official Arch repositories.


r/archlinux 8h ago

QUESTION Snapping windows to top and bottom in KDE Plasma?

1 Upvotes

I have a vertical monitor and I'd like to be able to snap windows to the top and bottom of the monitor, the same way you can snap them to the left and right. I haven't been able to find an option for that, and I haven't been able to find anything online about it either. Does anyone know if it's possible for me to set it up to do this? TIA


r/archlinux 22h ago

SUPPORT College Internet Authentication

17 Upvotes

To connect to my college’s wifi, it requires an authentication which needs a browser, but unlike my roomate’s windows laptop, mine doesn’t show the option to authenticate on browser

When I use something like http://neverssl.com or http://httpforever.com the authentication pop up only lasts a few seconds and doesn’t give me enough time to enter the login details…please help


r/archlinux 16h ago

SUPPORT Davinci Resolve Studio keeps asking for activation license.

3 Upvotes

I recently reinstalled arch with hyprland, only exception is that I also installed the noctalia shell. When i reistalled davici resolve it worked fine. I followed all the steps like doing "sudo chown $USER:$GROUP /opt/resolve/.license" since I used to run into a problem where davinci resolve wouldn't let me activate the license. Now though, it re-prompts me every time I start the app. I can still have a full work session while I work after the activation but usually within a day I run out of re-activation attempts. Anyone have any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this or what could be going on?

Edit: Since I needed Resolve for urgent work. I found out I can "rent" a license and connect to the app with my black magic account. When doing so the license sticks fine - no issue at all, I can restart the app as much as I want without it prompting me again. This doesn't solve my issue though as I still would prefer using my permanent license over paying 30 dollars every month.


r/archlinux 15h ago

QUESTION How can I partition my SSD to make it dual boot after already setting up ARCH and my DE?

0 Upvotes

Still trying to learn Linux and all, but now after setting up my Hyprland setup I realized i want to be able to dual boot into Windows. Can I partition my SSD after already having installing ARCH? I tried using Gparted, but it's not letting me partition my disk. Unless It's because it's being used as my home directory.


r/archlinux 14h ago

SUPPORT grub won't install and keeps saying "Warning: embedding is not possible..."

0 Upvotes

As the title says, I have been ripping my hair out for 3 hours trying to fix this. Whenever I run the "grub-install /dev/sda" command it returns 3 errors and the install fails. The errors are:

"warning: grub-core/partmap/gpt.c:gpt_partition_map_embed:194:this gpt partition label contains no BIOS boot partition; embedding won't be possible."

"warning: embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be install in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged.."

"grub-install: error: will not proceed with blocklists."

I am a first time arch user so it's probably just me being stupid but I have everything else installed and set up, and my partitions have been made and configured with filepaths set, what am I missing here?


r/archlinux 1d ago

SUPPORT My External Screen's Brightness Got Lower with Linux Kernel 7.2.x?

0 Upvotes

My External Screen's Brightness Got Lower with Linux Kernel 7.2.x? I tried to switch to LTS 6.18.49-1 to see if the issue existed on the version and it did not so I concluded that this is and 7.2.x issue.

Anyone else having this?

System:

Linux 7.2.2-arch1-1 Hyprland 0.56.2 (Wayland) LENOVO ThinkPad E14 Gen 6


r/archlinux 23h ago

QUESTION Does this problem when i turn on my PC have a solution? Or im fcked

0 Upvotes

Hi so i had a couple of crashes and now after the last one this is what is saying, I’m trying to solve it on the usb installation but mounting the disk is giving some problems too
Am i totally fucked and will have to reinstall? I have a lot of things i wont like to lose 😭

Timed out while waiting for udeu queue to empty.
Mount: /new_root: fsconfig() failed: File exists.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
ERROR: Failed to mount 'UUID=4187013b-c029-43e2-9030-9fdbc6b95ed7' on real root
You are now being dropped into an emergency shell.
can't access tty: job control turned off
rootfs ~]#


r/archlinux 2d ago

QUESTION What is the rolling release model really like?

17 Upvotes

I would like to try out Arch as my main OS for daily use. However, I have quite a bit of respect of the whole rolling-release concept. What is it really like to work on a rolling-release OS for daily use when you want to keep your system rather minimal? However frequent are new releases, and is it really that cumbersome?

Edit: Thanks to y‘all for the lots of helpful input! This has resolved many unnecessary doubts I had, and reassured me to actually try out Arch. I‘m excited!


r/archlinux 22h ago

SUPPORT Help. Cant even use internet.

0 Upvotes

Up until two or three days ago, everything was working fine—playing videos, audio playback, Discord conversations, and watching videos. But starting around today, things suddenly changed... even though I can still connect to the internet. Maybe Arch just isn't the right fit for me. I'm thinking of copying the data structure—including things like .sh files—and switching to something like Ubuntu. Are there any other, perhaps more complex, solutions I should try first?


r/archlinux 1d ago

SUPPORT | SOLVED Questions about zswap

2 Upvotes

The Arch wiki states that zswap is enabled by default. The linked Wikipedia page says:

at least one already existing swap device is required for zswap to be used

So what happens if I don't have any swap devices?

Can zswap be used with a swap file instead of a partition/device?

How does one set all this up, where are the relevant docs?


r/archlinux 1d ago

QUESTION Help understanding the Linux boot process vs. Arch Linux boot setup?

0 Upvotes

I’m trying to deeply understand the Linux boot process, but every article and video I find stays pretty superficial.

They usually just say: Press Power Button → POST executes → UEFI loads GRUB → GRUB loads vmlinuz and initramfs

Where I get confused is how this connects to what we actually do during an Arch Linux installation (setting up the EFI System Partition, using efibootmgr, configuring grub.cfg, EFI Shell, etc.).

Can someone explain the low-level, step-by-step connection between what the hardware/firmware does at power-on and what tools like GRUB, efibootmgr, and initramfs are actually doing behind the scenes?


r/archlinux 1d ago

DISCUSSION Am I doing wrong by using Hyprland + Arch

0 Upvotes

Hello guys I was looking for some support, in various Linux communities I’ve seen some hate to people that use Arch and Hyprland, I love it it’s great, I joined to Linux because I wanted my desktop to look like that, blurred anime girls everywhere. but now I’m seeing so much hate, people saying we are larpers, and other stuff I have tried Niri and KDE plasma but I didn’t liked the workflows and in the case of KDE I feel a lot of bloat, also I was thinking on moving to Gentoo NixOs or LFS but I feel like Arch and Hyprland just work how I want to work, do I really need to change?


r/archlinux 1d ago

SUPPORT Fontconfig: weird behaviour when setting system-ui

0 Upvotes

when i fc-match "system ui" it successfully binds to Roboto, but when i fc-match "system-ui" it binds to noto sans

<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd"> <fontconfig> <alias binding="strong"> <family>serif</family> <prefer> <family>Noto Serif</family> </prefer> </alias> <alias binding="strong"> <family>sans-serif</family> <prefer> <family>Noto Sans</family> </prefer> </alias> <alias binding="strong"> <family>monospace</family> <prefer> <family>Jetbrains Mono</family> </prefer> </alias> <alias binding="strong"> <family>system-ui</family> <prefer> <family>Roboto</family> </prefer> </alias> </fontconfig> this is my /etc/fonts/local.conf


r/archlinux 1d ago

SUPPORT | SOLVED Why is efibootmgr needed if I already installed GRUB?

0 Upvotes

I'm trying to understand the Linux boot process, especially on a UEFI system.

I understand it roughly as:

Power on → POST → UEFI → GRUB → kernel (vmlinuz) + initramfs → systemd

But I'm confused about efibootmgr.

When installing Arch, we often do:

pacman -S grub efibootmgr

If GRUB is already the bootloader, why do we need efibootmgr?

What exactly is the difference between:

  • GRUB
  • grub-install
  • efibootmgr
  • UEFI boot entries/NVRAM
  • EFI System Partition (ESP)

For example, when I run:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB

what exactly happens?

Does grub-install install the GRUB .efi file and create the UEFI boot entry, or is the boot entry handled separately by efibootmgr?

I'd really appreciate a simple but technically accurate explanation of what happens from pressing the power button until Linux starts, and where efibootmgr fits into that process.


r/archlinux 2d ago

SUPPORT | SOLVED Duplicate audio device after disconnecting and reconnecting

13 Upvotes

I updated my system today and after updating, every time I unplug and plug my DAC (which is often due to using a KVM with my work computer), a new identical device shows up. And the device sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. There were no mentions of pipewire in pacman.log today. The previous time I updated was 8/16 and there was an update to kpipewire . But the problem only started today. Any ideas?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:~$ pactl list short | grep Schiit
61  alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
61  alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo.monitor  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
62  alsa_input.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo   PipeWire    s24le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
51  alsa_card.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00  alsa
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:~$ pactl list short | grep Schiit
61  alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
365 alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
61  alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo.monitor  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
62  alsa_input.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo   PipeWire    s24le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
365 alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo.monitor  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
366 alsa_input.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo   PipeWire    s24le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
364 alsa_card.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00  alsa
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:~$ pactl list short | grep Schiit
61  alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
365 alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
380 alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
61  alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo.monitor  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
62  alsa_input.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo   PipeWire    s24le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
365 alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo.monitor  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
366 alsa_input.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo   PipeWire    s24le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
380 alsa_output.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo.monitor  PipeWire    s32le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
381 alsa_input.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00.analog-stereo   PipeWire    s24le 2ch 48000Hz   SUSPENDED
379 alsa_card.usb-Schiit_Audio_Schiit_Gunnr-00  alsa

r/archlinux 1d ago

SUPPORT | SOLVED Features breaking

0 Upvotes

Lately I have been experiencing unusual behaviour on my arch system. Sometimes after updating some features become permanently broken no matter if I downgraded the system packages back or switched to LTS kernel and drivers or not. The first happened with wifi and now after the device sleeps for a long time the wifi is broken and the system must be restarted or else the tty will change on randomly while using the system. Now after updating the kernel and wireplumber 2 days ago my sof sound card stopped detecting my earphones as a sound output device and I had to force the system to use the hda driver instead, I also tried downgrading but it had no effect. Does anyone know what kind of issue this is or how to fix it?


r/archlinux 1d ago

SHARE Libvirtd Prevents Suspend

0 Upvotes

Set up: Latest arch, Nvidia 580xx driver, but these don’t matter I guess, maybe they do, no idea.

Ok, things went wrong after I enabled several services, including docker, containerd and the final culprit, libvirtd. The computer won’t go to sleep after I press the power button, it worked well before. Why I installed libvirtd may be that I asked llm to create totally isolated guest system so I can test kernel builds and other llm related stuff. And it used the wrapper to create bunch of things including the guest network. After 3 days of debugging with journal -b -1 [-k] led to the final solution. I disabled the service (this service only), and stopped it, together with all sockets units, my computer can again sleep soundly.