Installing Omarchy On VMware Workstation

Update – February 23, 2026

After some great feedback from the YouTube community, here’s a list of additional tips and troubleshooting steps for those still experiencing issues:

• VMware Workstation Specific
• Ensure Open VM Tools is installed and running
• Keep the VM in full screen mode and the mouse focused
• Set the resolution lower than the monitor to keep it from spilling to other monitors and interfering with the focus
• Omarchy Specific
• Resolution Scaling – Set value for “env = GDK_SCALE,1” to 1 in “monitors.conf”, if it’s too high, the hot keys will be received by the vm but nothing appears to happen or open in the GUI
• Environment Variable Location – Some users reported issues loading the “env = LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE, 1” variable when using “~username/.config/hypr/envs.conf”, if this happens try writing it to main hyprland config – “~username/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf”.

I’ve been running Omarchy on a Surface Pro for a few months now, and I have to say it’s a truly great distro! If you’re serious about getting the most out of it, I’d definitely recommend considering dedicated hardware, especially something with graphics support. Even just switching from a VM to the Surface Pro (2018), the performance jump and responsiveness were very noticeable.

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If you’re trying to run Omarchy on VMware Workstation, you might be experiencing some issues with the GUI after what appears to be a successful installation.

With the basic graphics option configured on the virtual machine, Omarchy will boot but then fall to a black screen right after entering the password. Enabling accelerated graphics gets the GUI to load, but then appears unresponsive, failing to launch any menus or applications.

As I was experimenting with my own setup, I found this super useful blog highlighting the same issues along with a working fix:
https://tillnet.se/index.php/2025/10/17/omarchy-on-vmware/

Download Omarchy:
https://omarchy.org/

VM Configuration

I will be using VMware Workstation 25H2 and the following VM configuration:

• Guest Operating System: Linux (Other Linux 6.x kernel 64-bit)
• Memory: 16 GB
• Processors: 8, All virtualizaton engine features unchecked
• Hard Disk: 60 GB
• CD/DVD: Omarchy.iso
• Network: Bridged
• Sound Card: Not connected
• Display: Accelerate 3D Graphics Checked, 8GB graphics memory

Installation

Boot the iso image like normal, following all of the prompts. After the installation is complete, the operating system will boot, prompt for the password, and then login into what seems to be an unresponsive GUI.

1. Press CTRL + ALT + F3 to switch over to a virtual terminal. If F3 doesn’t work, try the other function keys and login using the same credentials created during the install process.
2. Elevate to a root session:

   $ sudo su
   

3. Update the local repository databases:

   # pacman -Sy
   

4. Install open-vm-tools and make sure it starts with the system:

   # pacman -S open-vm-tools
   # systemctl enable vmtoolsd
   

5. Create/edit the envs.conf file:

   # nvim ~username/.config/hypr/envs.conf
   

   Add the following line and save:

   env = LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE, 1
   

   Note: Some users reported issues loading the “env = LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE, 1” variable when using “~username/.config/hypr/envs.conf”, if this happens try writing it to main hyprland config – “~username/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf”.

6. Edit the monitors.conf file:

   # nvim ~username/.config/hypr/monitors.conf
   

   Add/edit the following lines:

   env = GDK_SCALE,1
   monitor=,1900x1050@60,auto,1
   

   Note: If the resolution is allowed to match the max of the monitor, it seems to cause issues with the VMware console. Hard setting it with -30H and -20W seems to work well.

7. Reboot:

   # systemctl reboot
   

Everything should now be working as expected!