Fix/install issues keyserver fallback, SDDM autologin user, claude-code conflict, nvidia package checks

[gabotachak]

Fix installer crashes: keyserver fallback, SDDM autologin user, claude-code conflict, nvidia package checks

Background

These fixes come from actually running the installer end-to-end on a fresh CachyOS system. Five bugs caused hard crashes or silent misconfigurations that only surface during a real install — none of them are visible in a dry-run or code review. They are documented here in the order you hit them.

One lesson learned the hard way: attempting this install from a CachyOS minimal/no-GUI system is not worth it. The installer assumes a running Wayland session (for hyprctl, wl-paste, SDDM already configured, etc.). Start from CachyOS with the Hyprland desktop environment pre-installed — that is the only baseline that has been tested and where everything works as expected.

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Bugs Fixed

1. pacman-key --recv-keys fails silently when keyserver is unreachable

Script: install-omarchy-on-cachyos.sh

What happened: The default keyserver (keys.gnupg.net) is frequently unreachable or rate-limited. The single pacman-key --recv-keys call would fail with no retry, leaving the Omarchy signing key unimported. Every subsequent pacman operation against the [omarchy] repository would then fail with a signature verification error, halting the install.

Fix: The key import now loops over three keyservers (keyserver.ubuntu.com over HKPS, keys.openpgp.org, and keyserver.ubuntu.com over plain HKP port 80 as a last resort). It breaks on the first success. If all three fail, the script exits with a clear error instead of continuing into a broken state.

# Before
sudo pacman-key --recv-keys F0134EE680CAC571

# After
OMARCHY_KEY=F0134EE680CAC571
for ks in hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com hkps://keys.openpgp.org hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80; do
    sudo pacman-key --keyserver "$ks" --recv-keys "$OMARCHY_KEY" && break
done
if ! sudo pacman-key --list-keys "$OMARCHY_KEY" &>/dev/null; then
    echo "Error: Failed to import omarchy signing key from all keyservers."
    exit 1
fi

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2. SDDM autologin configured as User=root

Script: install-omarchy-on-cachyos.sh

What happened: Omarchy's install/login/sddm.sh writes /etc/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf with User=$USER. Because the installer runs as root (via sudo), $USER expands to root at the time the sed patch is applied. The result: SDDM autologin tries to start a Hyprland session as root, which Hyprland refuses. The machine boots to a broken login loop.

Fix: Before copying the Omarchy tree, the script patches install/login/sddm.sh to replace $USER with the value of $OMARCHY_USER_NAME (already set earlier in the script to the actual non-root user). This happens at patch time, before install.sh runs, so the written config contains the correct username.

# Fix SDDM autologin to use the intended username instead of $USER.
# The install runs as root, so without this fix autologin.conf gets User=root.
sed -i "s/User=\$USER/User=$OMARCHY_USER_NAME/" install/login/sddm.sh

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3. pacman aborts with file conflict on /usr/bin/claude

Script: install-omarchy-on-cachyos.sh

What happened: CachyOS ships claude-code in its repositories. If the user installed it (or it was pulled in as a dependency), /usr/bin/claude already exists on the system. When Omarchy's install.sh runs and tries to install its own claude-code package, pacman detects a file conflict and aborts. This happens near the end of the install, after all other packages are already installed, making it both surprising and disruptive.

Fix: Just before running install.sh, the script checks for and removes any existing claude-code installation. It handles both the case where the full package is installed (uses pacman -Rdd to skip dependency checks) and the case where only the binary exists as a stray file.

if pacman -Q claude-code &>/dev/null 2>&1; then
    sudo pacman -Rdd --noconfirm claude-code
elif [ -f /usr/bin/claude ]; then
    sudo rm -f /usr/bin/claude
fi

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4. nvidia.sh crashes when open-driver packages are not installed

Script: nvidia.sh

What happened: The original removal command listed all four conflicting packages in a single pacman -Rdd call with 2>/dev/null || true. If any of the packages were not installed (e.g., on a fresh minimal CachyOS without the Hyprland desktop), pacman exits non-zero for the whole batch. The || true masked this — but on some system configurations, set -e or wrapper logic caused the script to abort prematurely.

Fix: Each package is checked individually with pacman -Q before attempting removal. This is explicit, avoids suppressing real errors with a blanket || true, and produces clear per-package output for debugging.

for pkg in libxnvctrl nvidia-open-dkms linux-cachyos-nvidia-open linux-cachyos-lts-nvidia-open; do
    if pacman -Q "$pkg" &>/dev/null 2>&1; then
        echo "[*] Removing $pkg..."
        sudo pacman -Rdd --noconfirm "$pkg" || true
    fi
done

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5. chwd -r rejects --noconfirm flag and exits non-zero

Script: nvidia.sh

What happened: The call to remove the old NVIDIA profile passed --noconfirm to chwd. Unlike pacman, chwd does not recognize this flag and exits with an error. Since this step ran before the profile install, the script would abort before the proprietary 580xx driver was ever installed, leaving the system in an inconsistent state with no working NVIDIA driver.

Fix: Remove the invalid flag. chwd -r is interactive but only when there is something to confirm — on a system where the profile is already absent (idempotent re-run), it exits cleanly. The || true is kept to handle the absent-profile case.

# Before
sudo chwd -r nvidia-open-dkms --noconfirm || true

# After
sudo chwd -r nvidia-open-dkms || true

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Recommended Installation Baseline

Install CachyOS with the Hyprland desktop environment selected during setup. This gives you:

• SDDM already installed and running
• The Fish shell as default (required)
• A working Wayland session to verify the result
• hyprctl available for monitor detection in post-install scripts

Installing from a minimal/no-GUI CachyOS system requires manually resolving session, display manager, and shell assumptions baked into the Omarchy installer. It is possible but significantly more painful and has not been tested as a supported path.