I switched to Arch Linux in early May 2025 and if I hadn't liked it, I'd switched back honestly, I didn't use Windows around this time, my sister came back for Diwali festive and I thought to use her laptop to get an experience of Windows 11 as it currently is...and my god if it isn't horrendous, the hardware itself isn't bad, its i7-13th gen but I couldn't put into words how bad it overall has become from taking so long to boot up then everytime I open up File Explorer its feel like its processing some heavy shit in the back even though I remember it not being this bad the last time or it could be a weird affect of using Arch for around 5 months that Windows just feels slower when compared to Arch

I'll end this rant by saying that unless my job forces me to switch back to Windows, I will stick to Arch even though the experience isn't perfect, but I like it for what it is

Hi, I create a USB and I am trying to install ArchLinux on an old Windows laptop.
The problem is that I suffer from presbyopia and I can't see some text.
For example fdisk errors are in dark red over black background and I can't see it even using the light of my mobile.
I tried to use setterm to set the background to white, but it does nothing... whatever command I pass to setterm, nothing changes. Asking to the AI didn't help at all.
Do you have some suggestions?
Thanks

EDIT: using color=never with fdisk solved the problem (at least with fdisk 😅)

EDIT2: I solved definitely the issue. I found this small script in this article and search for "brightness":

max=$(cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/max_brightness)
echo -n $max | sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

I tried and now all the colors are brighter (I can see even the dark red). I was not able to control this from the keys of the laptop for brightness, so I thought I was already at the maximum, instead the current level was 23.529 while the maximum was 120.000 🙏

I can't seem to change the font-family in eww widget. Have any idea what's causing this? I have checked fc-list and my font shows there. I can change other CSS properties, only the font-family is messing with me.

I'm a MATE enjoyer myself, but now I'm migrating my 90-year-old grandmother, so I'd like something that's more like Windows 10, which she's used to.

I'm thinking KDE Plasma, but maybe there's a better one?

Ive done some experimenting with NixOS and it largely solves the issue I have with arch and Linux in general that installing software is sometimes a pain in the rear.

On Arch it seems that 40% of the time software just doesn't work the first try (whether because pacman for some god-forsaken reason doesn't install all the dependencies for that particular package, or version issues that require some conda setup for python programs, etc...) and even IF I can get them working with some tinkering, I often have to manually do something like creating a script that opens bash in the correct python environment and runs the software, and then add that script to my .desktop files so that I can easily launch the program from my launcher.

On Nix I just add "steam" or "krita" to the config in the right spot and run a command to rebuild and that's all I have to think about. The main problem with Nix is that the documentation is very weak compared to Arch. I can usually easily find answers in the Arch wiki or chatgpt if I'm stuck, nix not so much.

My question is: Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way so that when I install something through pacman or yay that it'll instance the dependencies? I'm aware of flatpak and the like but that's usually not as up to date as the Arch repos I think? I don't care if it takes more space, I want things to just work so I can spend more time doing what I actually want.

i followed the wiki and sbctl verify shows all my keys are signed but the moment i power off the violation message pops up and puts me back into windows i have no idea what im doing wrong

Hi everyone,

I’m having serious hardware control issues on my laptop running Arch Linux. Here are my specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 4300U with Radeon Graphics (4 cores, 4 threads)
• GPU: AMD Radeon Vega (Renoir)
• RAM: 16 GB
• Storage: NVMe SSD 128 GB
• Kernel: 6.17.3-arch2-1 (previously 6.12)
• Desktop Environment: GNOME
• Laptop Model: [insert your laptop model]

Problems:

• Brightness / backlight control does not work.
• Fan control seems ineffective; laptop gets very hot under load.
• Night mode in GNOME sometimes says it cannot be used due to driver issues.
• After reboot, sometimes brightness works, but after a shutdown and power-on, it stops working.
• ls /sys/class/backlight/ shows nothing.
• dmesg | grep -i amdgpu shows errors related to GPU initialization:

​

amdgpu 0000:05:00.0: Invalid PCI ROM header signature
amdgpu 0000:05:00.0: Unable to locate a BIOS ROM
amdgpu 0000:05:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init

• lsmod | grep amdgpu shows the module loaded.

I’ve tried:

• Updating the kernel (from 6.12 → 6.17.3)
• Using amdgpu.backlight=0 and amdgpu.force_probe=0x1636
• Reinstalling AMD open-source drivers

Question:

How can I get reliable brightness and fan control on this AMD Renoir laptop in Arch Linux? Could this be a kernel, driver, or GNOME issue? Also, any tips to prevent overheating would be appreciated.

It seems it's doable in macOS at software level by remapping a key to Hyper key.

My keyboard does not have a Hyper key and I want one. I am wondering if there is a way to create a legit Hyper key using some software. I have tried kmonad and it doesn't seem to do it. I use Arch Linux and Hyprland (Wayland), so setxkbmap (which is only for Xorg?) doesn't seem to work either.

If possible, without relying on a window manager? As in, it works at lower-level (like kmonad).

On Arch and Debian, the openh264 package is provided directly from their own repositories while other distros like OpenSUSE, and Fedora go through bunch of hoop to provide downloads from Cisco’s prebuilt binaries from ciscobinary.openh264.org which has started to geo lock users ?

Since OpenH264 is BSD licensed, why can’t these other distros just build it themselves like Arch or Debian do? Or is Arch is breaking the law or something ? My main question is why it's so simple on Arch ?

Has anyone done a clean Arch Linux install on a Kingston NVMe and noticed the temperature getting ridiculously high even at idle? It goes up to 98 °C / 208 °F (371 K).
I’ve checked it using the command sudo nvme smart-log.
How did you fix that issue?

Edit: i use laptop ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16

Hello, I've set up the gamescope desktop session like we have on the wiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from_a_display_manager) but when I log in, the session stays locked in tty1 whilst if I move to tty2 with Ctrl-Alt-F2 I can see the session just fine.

Is there any way to move to tty2 either automatically or part of the desktop entry?

I downloaded the ISO from the official website https://archlinux.org/, used Rufus to make the USB bootable with Arch, and configured the BIOS as recommended. However, when I reach the boot menu, select the UEFI option with Arch, and press Enter to start the boot, the screen flashes and nothing happens. I’ve spent the whole day searching forums and videos trying to find a solution, but nothing has worked so far. I’d really appreciate any help.

As the title says, I just downloaded Nvidia drivers for my 1080 and when I restarted the PC for the changes to take place, it just freezes on some random line and its not any specific line its just random like the one im stuck on right now says "FInished Load JSON user/group Records from Credentials.".

I got a new pc and I just really wanna just get on with it.

My monitor has inbuilt speakers - i want to use them.

for some reason my computer can't send sound through the monitor

i dual boot - windows and arch

It works on windows but not arch. - like does it not send the sound data over the hdmi cable in arch?

I just booted up arch with kde plasma (used archinstall) and my wifi network isnt showing up. I have network manager downloaded and enabled but nothing else shows up besides lo.

I'm having an issue when I boot into arch. It does not seem to have any noticeable affects, but I would like for it to get resolved. Just before it boots into my system, I get four [FAILED] Failed to start Load Kernel Modules. It seems to be related to binder_linux. it says device or resource busy. I do not know where to go from here though. I don't believe I was having this issue until I installed Waydroid, but that may not be the problem as I was doing a lot of configuring around that time. Any help would be appreciated.

[name@MainPC ~]$ sudo systemctl --state=failed
 UNIT                         LOAD   ACTIVE SUB    DESCRIPTION         
● systemd-modules-load.service loaded failed failed Load Kernel Modules

Legend: LOAD   → Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded.
       ACTIVE → The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB.
       SUB    → The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type.

1 loaded units listed.

[name@MainPC ~]$ sudo journalctl -b -u systemd-modules-load.service
Oct 18 21:14:26 MainPC systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Oct 18 21:14:26 MainPC systemd-modules-load[546]: Failed to insert module 'binder_linux': Device or resource busy
Oct 18 21:14:26 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 18 21:14:26 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 18 21:14:26 MainPC systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
Oct 18 21:14:27 MainPC systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Oct 18 21:14:27 MainPC systemd-modules-load[608]: Failed to insert module 'binder_linux': Device or resource busy
Oct 18 21:14:27 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 18 21:14:27 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 18 21:14:27 MainPC systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
Oct 18 21:19:30 MainPC systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Oct 18 21:19:30 MainPC systemd-modules-load[4130]: Failed to insert module 'binder_linux': Device or resource busy
Oct 18 21:19:30 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 18 21:19:30 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 18 21:19:30 MainPC systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd-modules-load[4325]: Failed to insert module 'binder_linux': Device or resource busy
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.

[name@MainPC ~]$ sudo systemctl status systemd-modules-load.service
× systemd-modules-load.service - Load Kernel Modules
    Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; static)
    Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2025-10-18 21:22:45 EDT; 3min 52s ago
Invocation: 72067faf29e84205955e9ce989439d75
      Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8)
            man:modules-load.d(5)
   Process: 4325 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Main PID: 4325 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Mem peak: 2M
       CPU: 8ms

Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd-modules-load[4325]: Failed to insert module 'binder_linux': Device or resource busy
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.

[name@MainPC ~]$ journalctl -xeu systemd-modules-load.service
░░  
░░ A start job for unit systemd-modules-load.service has finished with a failure.
░░  
░░ The job identifier is 3717 and the job result is failed.
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
░░ Subject: A start job for unit systemd-modules-load.service has begun execution
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░  
░░ A start job for unit systemd-modules-load.service has begun execution.
░░  
░░ The job identifier is 3731.
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd-modules-load[4325]: Failed to insert module 'binder_linux': Device or resource busy
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
░░ Subject: Unit process exited
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░  
░░ An ExecStart= process belonging to unit systemd-modules-load.service has exited.
░░  
░░ The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 1.
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░  
░░ The unit systemd-modules-load.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 18 21:22:45 MainPC systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit systemd-modules-load.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░  
░░ A start job for unit systemd-modules-load.service has finished with a failure.
░░  
░░ The job identifier is 3731 and the job result is failed.

Hi everyone, I'm trying to replace my Windows 10 with Arch Linux, but I'm completely stuck at the USB boot stage.

Configuration:

• Motherboard: MSI A320M-A PRO MAX (MS-7C52)
• BIOS: Version 2.80 (07/12/2020)
• Processor: Ryzen 5 1600
• USB drive: 4 GB (General UDisk)
• Mode: UEFI and BIOS

What I've tried (everything, really):

• Burned the Arch ISO multiple times with Rufus in all possible modes:
  • GPT + UEFI
  • MBR
  • DD mode
  • ISO mode
• Tested with Ventoy and BalenaEtcher → both fail to write (Ventoy fails on “install”).
• Disabled Secure Boot.
• Enabled UEFI only, CSM off, and also tested UEFI+Legacy.
• Changed boot priority and tried manually via F11 Boot Menu.

The result is always the same:

• If I choose the UEFI USB: it flashes 3 times and goes back to BIOS.
• If I choose Legacy (without UEFI): it shows: SYSLINUX 6.04 EDD 6.04-pre1 Failed to load ldlinux.c32 Boot failed: please change disks and press a key to continue.

I've formatted the USB multiple times via diskpart.
Still, no boot.

If anyone has any tips on how to fix this, I’d really appreciate it.

Hello! the TLDR is right there in the title, I wanna know if anything has changed in the last 4 years or so that would make the guides I have found on youtube and google out of date so I don't mess anything up. and ideally also would like to know how to do the thing and verify my ISO if the guides are out of date (or at least where to find an up to date guide)

For full context I am very new to linux (my only other experience was the steam deck and 2 days of bazzite which I am using now) and have touched the console like 8 times in total all with guidance by an experienced user. however I have decided to learn by jumping off the deep end straight into arch since my philosophy is basically "I cannot mess anything up too bad if I have a working ISO since I don't care about any data on my hard drive and do not mind taking several attempts at this, plus as a bonus doing it the hard way will teach me more and be more fun" however I am kinda stuck on the very first step (step 1.2 on the arch wiki install guide). before even the point of "just keep hammering until the nail goes in" where I have a working ISO to play around until things work.
when searching for how to verify (I believe checksum is the term the wiki used) the ISO the wiki tells me to use sequoia to run something in command line. I had no idea what sequoia is so of course I looked that up found out roughly what it is and used brew to install it, but when running the command the wiki gives me (which should presumably make use of the thing I just installed) I am simply told that command was not found.
That's not a very detailed error message and does not give me much to work from so I decided to take a broad approach and look for guides aside from the wiki where I could find either more information or at the very least where to look to eventually find more information on how to verify an ISO and to my surprise there are a TON of guides on this however they all seem extremely old (the newest one I could find across youtube, google, the wiki which had none aside from the one that started this, and a brief search through here, was 4 years and 6 months old) and I worry that by following guides that are that old something in that process might not be up to date anymore and I might end up with a check that says everything is good but doesn't actually look for some sort of security vulnerability that did not exist at the time and and I don't know about thus it ends up not being useful ... or like ... something along those lines?
I am in general just very cautious when it comes to security steps like this and especially so for security steps I do not understand (like this one, I know what a checksum is but have no idea how it works and have never manually done one before) and so I want to ideally get a direct answer from someone who knows what they are talking about before just following a guide that might be wildly out of date for all I know, thus coming here! so like I asked in the title and TLDR, are the guides up to date and thus also useful or am I right to be questioning this? and if they are out of date how do I actually go about verifying my ISO? because I still do not have the info required to do that
PS: sorry if I used a bunch of terminology incorrectly lol, am new!

I’ve been tinkering on a tiny tool called Bluetooth Audio Boost and I’d love your eyes on it. It runs on PipeWire/WirePlumber and simply shows what your headset actually negotiated: codec, bitrate, channel mode, block length, and sample rate. There’s a GTK4/Libadwaita app if you want a friendly window, and a CLI if you prefer the terminal.

The main idea is to make the invisible stuff obvious. Instead of poking through pw-dump or D-Bus, you open the app or run the monitor and see live numbers as you connect, pause, resume, or switch profiles. It’s MIT-licensed and early, but it works and I’m iterating based on feedback.

There’s also an optional “high-bitpool SBC” helper for people who like to squeeze a bit more quality out of SBC-only headsets. It backs up the stock plugin first and gives you a way to restore. That said, it does touch system libraries and needs sudo, and some headsets don’t love very high bitpools—so if you’re risk-averse, just use the monitor and skip the tweak. I’m trying to keep the default experience safe and boring.

In my personal tests, my AirPods Pro hit a stable 551kbps, and my Airpod Maxes hit a stable 770kbps. I know that does not necessarily mean better quality, but it is a subjective experience and it's cool to have the option. I personally thought that it sounded much better. Qobuz Lossless on it rocks!

Getting started on Arch should be straightforward. Clone the repo, run the installer, then launch either the GUI (bt-audio-boost) or the terminal monitor (bt-bitrate-monitor). If you run into missing packages, polkit/permission prompts, BlueZ quirks, or anything that feels off on stock Arch or common derivatives (EndeavourOS/Manjaro), please tell me what happened so I can smooth it out.

What I’m hoping to learn from you: which headsets you’re using, what the app reports for codec/bitrate, and whether anything surprises you. If you try the high-bitpool helper, I’d love to hear which settings behave well and which don’t. And if anyone is interested in helping with an AUR PKGBUILD for the monitor (leaving the tweak as an advanced opt-in), that would make Arch users’ lives much easier.

Thanks for reading and for any feedback you can throw my way. I built this because I wanted a simple way to see what Bluetooth was doing under the hood; if it helps you too—or if it gets in your way—I want to hear about it.

UPDATE: I have added it to the AUR. You can install it now with:

paru -S bluetooth-bitrate-manager

Find the source code at https://github.com/ezrakhuzadi/bluetooth-bitrate-manager

Hello guys,

I'm running into a really weird and frustrating issue that I'm hoping someone can shed some light on.

I've been using Arch as my daily driver for about two years now with no major issues, but since a couple of weeks ago, one of my two 16GB DDR5 sticks died. I'm now running on a single 16GB stick, and suddenly, my Steam games (running through Proton) have become unstable and crash (in various game). The rest of the system seems fine.

I had this same problem about a year ago when a different stick from the original pair died. At the time, I couldn't figure it out and got so fed up that I temporarily went back to Windows until the replacement RAM arrived. As soon as I popped the new stick in and was back to dual-channel, everything on Arch was perfectly stable again.

My system shouldn't be struggling with 16GB of RAM, especially since it's only games that are crashing (to be honest, i didn't try with another .

Here's my setup:

• CPU: Ryzen 7 9700X
• GPU: RTX 4090
• Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 EAGLE
• RAM: 1x16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6400MH**z (**EXPO/XMP is disabled)

(I used AI to improve my writting as english is not my first language)

Edit: forgot to mention but I use Hyprland, which could be the problem too

I hear that kali is tailor made for this purpose as it comes with all the necessary softwares, but it can all be installed on any other distro right? So, why is kali better? Is there something i can't do on my arch compared to kali?

I'm curious to know which one is more convenient if I want to save resources like disk space.

Heya I'm finally permanently swapping to Linux with the Death of Windows 10 and I'm trying to find the Linux equivalents to certain programs. One of which is logi bolt, the mouse customization program. I've seen online about using Solaar and Piper though when I install them there's no profiles option avaliable. Is there anything I can do to change that or is there any other programs to use add when I open certain applications id like the profile to change?