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Trevin edited this page Sep 5, 2026 · 6 revisions

Compatibility

What Aphotic-Hypr actually requires to run, and what it doesn't support.

Aphotic was previously known as Noctis-Hypr.

Operating System

Arch Linux / AUR-based only

Aphotic assumes an Arch/AUR base and leans on that assumption throughout the installer. Package resolution, the AUR helper detection, and the BlackArch integration for the exploit layer all depend on it. Two distros beyond plain Arch are tested and supported directly:

  • Omarchy: a Hyprland-based Arch distro with its own competing desktop shell, pacman-update guard, and idle screensaver. install.sh detects it (detect_omarchy()) and handles each of those. It works around Omarchy's own update guard rather than fighting it, stops Omarchy's own shell the same way Aphotic already replaces Waybar/Mako/Swaylock/Rofi on any install (see below), and keeps Omarchy's idle screensaver working through Aphotic's own hypridle config instead of dropping it. Verified on a fresh Omarchy ISO install, full out-of-box setup.
  • EndeavourOS, installed with Desktop Environment: None: architecturally identical to a minimal Arch/AUR install, with no competing DE to account for. ./install.sh, reboot, remove the install media.

Other Arch-based derivatives (Manjaro and similar) may happen to work if their package/AUR layout matches upstream Arch closely enough, but they aren't tested or officially supported beyond the two above. Issues specific to an untested derivative are lower priority than issues on plain Arch, Omarchy, or EndeavourOS.

Not supported

  • Debian/Ubuntu-based systems, Fedora/RHEL-based systems, or any non-AUR distribution
  • Windows or macOS
  • X11 sessions — Aphotic is Wayland-native throughout and requires Hyprland

Window Manager

Aphotic requires Hyprland. There's no fallback compositor and no plan to add one — the Quickshell shell, keybinds, and window-management features are all built directly against Hyprland's IPC and protocols.

The Stack

These are the actual components Aphotic installs and configures, per the README's Stack section:

Layer Choice
Window Manager Hyprland
Shell (bar, launcher, notifications, OSD, lock, power menu, dashboard, screenshot picker) Quickshell — hand-vendored, fully custom QML
Terminal Kitty
File Manager Thunar
Wallpaper Engine awww
Terminal shell ZSH or Starship
Audio Visualizer Cava

Waybar, Mako, Swaylock, and Rofi are retired — the Quickshell shell (hand-vendored QML checked into the repo, not an installed dependency) replaces all four natively: the bar, notifications, the lock screen, and the launcher (app search, clipboard history, emoji picker, window switcher, wallpaper picker, and power menu — see Supported Features). Neither profile installs Rofi, and nothing in the repo launches it. If you're coming from an older clone or a guide that references any of those four, treat it as stale.

On Omarchy specifically, this same replacement extends to Omarchy's own bar, notifications, and lock screen: Aphotic's shell fully replaces them. This loses no real functionality. Aphotic's own hypridle-driven lock already covers what Omarchy's shell-based lock provided, and everything else Omarchy-specific (fcitx5, tailscale, crash-watch, the omarchy CLI itself, the idle screensaver) is a separate systemd service or standalone binary that keeps working untouched.

Profiles

Profile What you get
minimal Hyprland, Quickshell, Kitty, awww, plus the binaries the always-loaded Quickshell shell itself needs (wallust, grim/slurp/swappy, brightnessctl, swaylock-effects).
full Everything in minimal, plus theming (Pywal, Pywalfox, Dracula GTK/icons), shell tooling (ZSH, Powerlevel10k, Starship), media (mpv, Cava, Swappy), file management (Thunar plus archive/GVFS plugins), Bluetooth, and SDDM.

Layers (gaming, dev, ai, exploit and its sublayers) merge on top of either profile. See Profiles & Layers for the full breakdown.

AUR Helper

An AUR helper is required to resolve AUR-sourced packages — yay or paru. install.sh detects an existing one or offers to install yay if neither is present.

GPU

No GPU vendor is required or excluded — Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA all work under Wayland/Hyprland. NVIDIA has a couple of install-time knobs worth knowing about:

  • install.sh --nvidia-driver <keep|reinstall> — only relevant if an NVIDIA driver is already installed. keep leaves it alone; reinstall replaces it with Aphotic's recommended nvidia-open-dkms. Non-interactive runs default to keep.
  • The optional Aphotic Assistant (install.sh --with-assistant, part of the ai layer) is NVIDIA-only and is silently unavailable on other GPUs.

Network

  • Installation needs internet access for package downloads (official Arch repos, AUR, and BlackArch if any exploit-* layer requiring it is selected).
  • Runtime is offline-capable for the core shell. A few optional features reach the network on demand: the Dashboard's weather card (Open-Meteo), community theme and plugin installs from the remote index, and Ollama/cloud AI providers if configured.

Firefox / VS Code theming caveats

  • Firefox theming requires the Pywalfox extension — without it, Firefox won't pick up the generated palette.
  • VS Code theming requires the Wal Theme extension, which install.sh bundles and installs automatically as part of the full profile.
  • GTK theming is in progress, per the README's Theming section.

Known Limitations

  • Arch/AUR-only, as above — this is a design decision, not a temporary gap.
  • Live per-monitor resolution/scale editing isn't wired up in Settings → Displays; it's blocked on a real Hyprland limitation (hyprctl keyword monitor doesn't reapply), not just unbuilt.
  • Dock and Minimal bar styles don't have the hover-popout system that Full and Taskbar have.

Reporting Compatibility Issues

Open an Issue with your distro/version, Hyprland version, GPU, the profile/layers you used, and steps to reproduce.

See also

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