Hardware

bromigOS looks at your computer when it installs, and sets up what the hardware needs: the graphics driver, and on a laptop the battery, screen brightness, power profiles and the touchpad. This page shows how to check what it found, and how to run that set-up again.

See what bromigOS found

bromigos hw

This lists your graphics cards and their drivers, whether this is a laptop, and what bromigos hw setup would change.

To see which graphics card the login screen and desktop will use at the next login, run:

bromigos hw display

It also says whether you chose that card in Settings, are trying it, or bromigOS chose it. It changes nothing, and it doesn’t report which card an already running desktop is using. bromigos hw graphics lists every card and what it’s for.

Set up your hardware again

Run this if a new graphics card needs its driver set up, or if the hardware check shows missing setup. Updates don’t install drivers on their own.

bromigos hw setup              # asks for your password for the system's part
bromigos hw setup --dry-run    # only say what it would do

It changes only what’s different. It never removes anything, and it never replaces an NVIDIA driver you already have.

It’s also a first-run question (bromigos setup hardware), and an item in the menu: SETUP › Hardware.

Graphics cards

Very old AMD and Intel chips get Mesa without Vulkan.

bromigOS knows a card by its ID, from NVIDIA’s and Mesa’s own lists, rather than guessing from its name.

On a new NVIDIA card the driver loads at the very start, so it is ready for the start-up screen and the login screen.

More than one graphics card

Settings › Graphics lists every graphics card in your computer, whatever its make, and what each one is for. Choose what each card is for explains it. Until you choose, bromigOS decides by itself, as below.

If only one working graphics card has a screen connected, bromigOS prefers that card for the login screen and desktop. You do not need to run setup just to choose it. A card with no screen connected does not take priority because the computer booted on it.

If screens are connected to several cards, or none report a connected screen, bromigOS keeps the existing GPU policy. Your explicit choices still take precedence, including a laptop’s saved preference. Cards bound or reserved for a virtual machine through VFIO, the kernel’s device-assignment interface, are excluded from the automatic choice.

The check happens when the login screen and desktop start. Moving a monitor cable does not move a running desktop’s renderer. Save your work and log out to start a new session; restart the computer if the login screen also needs to choose again.

This chooses among cards whose drivers already work. It does not install a missing driver.

The default bar follows the available screens. If you pinned your bar or monitor settings to a connector name, check those settings after moving the cable. A connector on another card can have a different name.

Choose what each card is for

Open Settings › Graphics. Each card shows its driver and the screens connected to it, and a Use for row with three buttons:

• Desktop: the card that draws the login screen and your desktop. Only a card with a screen connected can be chosen.
• Games and heavy apps: the card games and demanding programs run on, even when the desktop draws on another card. One card can do both.
• Virtual machines: a card kept for virtual machines only, so a VM can use it as its own graphics card. This is called GPU passthrough.

Hover over anything on the page to see what it does. Each use is Automatic until you choose. Automatic for the desktop is the rule above. For games, it’s the strongest card: a card of its own over one built into the processor, then the newest.

If you add, swap or remove a card, bromigOS notices at the next start. A use whose card is gone goes back to Automatic.

Move the desktop to another card

1. Connect a screen to the card.
2. In Settings › Graphics, choose Desktop on that card, then Try it.
3. Enter your password.
4. Log out and log back in. The login screen and the desktop now use that card.
5. Settings opens by itself. Choose Keep.

Until you choose Keep, the old card is still your choice. If the screen stays dark, restart the computer and the old card comes back by itself. You never need the boot menu for this.

You can also go back from a text console. Press Ctrl+Alt+F3, log in, and run:

sudo bromigos hw display reset
sudo systemctl restart display-manager

The first command sets the desktop’s card back to Automatic. The second brings the login screen back. It ends any open session, so restarting the computer works too.

From a terminal, bromigos hw display use CARD chooses a card and bromigos hw display keep keeps it. A card is its PCI address, such as 0000:03:00.0, or its name in /dev/dri, such as card1.

Run games on another card

Choose Games and heavy apps on a card. It’s yours alone, so it needs no password. Programs use it when you start them one of these ways:

• Steam. Turn on Start Steam on the games card. Steam and every game it starts, Proton’s included, then run on that card. It applies when you start Steam from the app launcher, so restart Steam after you turn it on.

• Any other program. Start it with bromigos hw run in front:

  bromigos hw run -- blender
  

• One Steam game. Set its launch options to bromigos hw run -- %command%.

bromigos hw run sets the switches each maker’s driver expects, and nothing when the games card also draws the desktop. bromigos hw run --print shows what it sets.

Keep a card for virtual machines

A card for a virtual machine must pass a few checks first. Open the card’s Virtual machines row in Settings › Graphics to see them. Hover over one to see why it matters. The checks are:

• the IOMMU is on. It’s a firmware setting, and the row says how to turn it on;
• the card doesn’t share its IOMMU group with other devices;
• no screen is connected to it, the desktop doesn’t use it, and another card with a screen stays for the desktop;
• the computer doesn’t start on it. Choose the other card in the firmware settings if it does;
• the start-up files can hold the card. The row says what to add if they can’t.

When they all pass, choose Virtual machines on the card. A terminal opens and asks for your password, then rebuilds the start-up files. Restart the computer. From then on, your virtual machines can use the card, and the desktop and programs can’t.

To give the card back, choose Virtual machines again, or run bromigos hw vfio release CARD, then restart.

bromigOS keeps the card by its PCI address, so it works with two identical cards. The card’s own sound device goes with it. Some older AMD cards need an extra kernel module, vendor-reset, to restart a VM. The checks say when yours does.

NVIDIA’s own driver for an older card

For a GeForce 600 to 10 series card, NVIDIA’s own driver is only in the AUR.

1. Run bromigos hw setup. It asks whether to build the driver with paru. Answer y.
2. paru shows you the recipe to review, then builds the driver.
3. Restart the computer.
4. Run bromigos hw setup again. With the driver loaded, it finishes setting it up.

Until then, the card runs on nouveau. The installer never builds this driver by itself. If you install the driver yourself instead, run bromigos hw setup afterwards too.

Laptops

On a laptop, bromigOS also sets up:

• The battery on the bar. It shows the charge, with + while charging and = when plugged in but not charging. It turns amber below 25% and red below 10%. Hover over it for the time left, the power it’s using and the battery’s health.

• Power profiles: power saver, balanced and performance. The bar shows the profile in use. Click it for the next one. The menu has them under TOGGLE too. If you already run another power manager, such as TLP or tuned, bromigOS leaves it alone.

• The brightness keys, which show the level on screen.

• Two graphics cards. On a laptop with a built-in graphics chip and an NVIDIA or AMD card, the desktop runs on the built-in one to save the battery. The other card sleeps until something needs it. To run a game or a heavy program on the other card, start it with bromigos hw run -- in front, or turn on Start Steam on the games card in Settings › Graphics. Run games on another card has more.

  bromigos hw run -- blender
  

  prime-run (NVIDIA) and DRI_PRIME=1 (AMD) work too.

The touchpad

The touchpad turns off while you type. To change any of this, open Settings › Keyboard & input, or run bromigos setup input.

To turn the three-finger swipe off, set gestures = false in the bromigos table of your ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua.

If something’s wrong

• A black screen after installing an NVIDIA driver. Restart once: the new driver loads when the computer starts. bromigos hw says whether the driver is loaded.
• A black screen after choosing another desktop card. Restart the computer: a card you haven’t kept yet goes back by itself. Or press Ctrl+Alt+F3 and run sudo bromigos hw display reset, then sudo systemctl restart display-manager.
• A black screen after moving a monitor to another card. From a text console, run bromigos hw display to check which card the login screen uses. A card chosen in Settings › Graphics wins while it has a monitor. Check your Hyprland hardware settings and any custom SDDM compositor command before changing drivers.
• Hibernation. If you set up hibernation, NVIDIA’s driver can’t load at the very start. bromigos hw setup notices this, and loads it a little later instead.
• The battery or the power profile doesn’t show. bromigos hw lists the battery it finds. The profile shows once the power profiles service runs: bromigos hw setup sets it up.

More in Troubleshooting.

For power users

Everything Settings › Graphics does, as commands, files and rules.

Every button, as a command

CARD is a PCI address, such as 0000:03:00.0, or a name in /dev/dri, such as card1.

Where the choices live

A choice names a card by its PCI address and its vendor and device ID together. Every start reads the cards again. A use whose card is gone, or has another card in its slot, goes back to Automatic.

How it works

• A trial. hw display use saves the card with this boot’s ID, from /proc/sys/kernel/random/boot_id. The login screen’s launcher and Hyprland read the choice through bromigos hw display. A new boot has a new ID, so a trial nobody kept ends by itself.
• hw run. It sets nothing when the games card draws the desktop too, and nothing for the whole session, so your other apps stay where they are. Per program:
  • MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=vendor:device puts the card first in Vulkan’s list. DXVK and vkd3d-proton take the first device, so Proton games follow it on any make of card. Two identical cards share an ID, so then it sets DRI_PRIME=pci-0000_03_00_0, the card’s PCI address, instead;
  • AMD, Intel and nouveau, for OpenGL, get DRI_PRIME=pci-…;
  • NVIDIA’s driver, while another card draws the desktop, gets PRIME render offload: __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1, __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only and __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia.
• Automatic for games picks a card of its own over one built into the processor, then the newer chip family, then more video memory, then the desktop’s card on a tie.
• Virtual machines. The card is reserved by PCI address, never by vendor and device ID, so one of two identical cards can be reserved. vfio reserve writes the three files above, then runs mkinitcpio -P. It needs the base and modconf hooks in your initramfs. bromigOS never edits the kernel’s command line: on Intel, add intel_iommu=on yourself, as the checks say. Handing a card over only while a VM runs isn’t built: a reserved card stays reserved from start to start.

Script it

bromigos hw graphics --json gives every card, its driver, its screens, its uses and its VM checks in one document. bromigos hw --json gives what bromigos hw prints. Every bromigos hw command takes --json, and the document’s schema is in core/README.md.

The developers’ version is What each card is for.