Optional hardware setup

GPU monitoring tools and permissions for btop Activity.

AMD Radeon, NVIDIA, and Intel graphics expose different information through different tools. When a reading is missing, the plugin can use an installed tool for that hardware to fill the gap. Installing one does not guarantee every reading: some GPUs do not expose a separate temperature or dedicated video memory.

Follow only the sections that match your hardware. On a mixed-GPU system, each card can use a different source. The plugin detects tools automatically and never installs packages or changes permissions itself. After setup, allow about 30 seconds for discovery and retries, or restart the shell:

omarchy restart shell

With multiple GPUs, the popup shows usage for the default OpenGL renderer when Fastfetch can match it to exactly one device. The tooltip still lists every GPU; an ambiguous renderer leaves the popup showing the GPU count.

Run the verification commands below as your normal desktop user, without sudo. A command that only works as root will not work inside the plugin. The tooltip and btop’s own GPU panel use separate readers; installing a tool for the tooltip does not necessarily enable the same readings inside btop.

CPU, RAM, and standard GPU readings

No additional installation is needed for CPU/RAM usage. Temperatures depend on the sensors your kernel exposes; missing sensors stay -- rather than being replaced by another component’s temperature.

Fastfetch supplies GPU names and additional readings where supported. It is already part of Omarchy; if you previously removed it, restore it with:

sudo pacman -S --needed fastfetch

The plugin also reads available Linux GPU counters directly. These paths need no vendor monitoring package.

AMD Radeon GPUs: ROCm SMI

With the amdgpu driver, Linux may already expose usage, temperature, and VRAM. For missing readings, and for AMD support in btop’s own GPU panel, install ROCm SMI:

sudo pacman -S --needed rocm-smi-lib
/opt/rocm/bin/rocm-smi --showbus --showuse --showtemp --showmeminfo vram --json

Restart btop if it was open during installation. On our Radeon RX 6400, this read-only command works without extra permissions. Removing ROCm SMI leaves the plugin’s kernel-provided readings working. That result does not guarantee the same coverage on every AMD model.

If the command reports GPU-access permission errors, check the device access described under AMD SMI below. Installing the monitoring tool does not replace or repair the graphics driver.

AMD GPUs: alternative AMD SMI

The plugin also supports amd-smi, supplied by Arch’s amdsmi package. It is an alternative source for usage, temperature, and VRAM on supported amdgpu devices. You do not need both AMD tools when your readings already work.

sudo pacman -S --needed amdsmi
/opt/rocm/bin/amd-smi list --json
/opt/rocm/bin/amd-smi metric --json -u -t -m

If it reports missing render/video groups or denied GPU-device access, an administrator can grant the standard AMD GPU access groups:

sudo usermod -aG render,video "$USER"

Log out of the desktop completely and log back in before retrying. This grants GPU-device access to your account, not just to this plugin. Do not add groups if the queries already work. AMD SMI also needs a compatible GPU and driver; permissions cannot make an unsupported device work. This backend is implemented but has not been hardware-tested here.

Intel integrated graphics using i915

For Intel graphics using the i915 driver, the plugin can read usage through intel_gpu_top:

sudo pacman -S --needed intel-gpu-tools
intel_gpu_top

Press Ctrl+C to exit the tool. If it reports Permission denied or requests CAP_PERFMON, grant that capability specifically to its executable:

sudo setcap cap_perfmon=ep /usr/bin/intel_gpu_top
getcap /usr/bin/intel_gpu_top

The last command should show cap_perfmon=ep. This permits access to performance counters without running the tool as root. Reinstalling or upgrading the package can remove the capability; check and reapply it if usage disappears.

We verified this setup on two Intel Haswell systems, including removing and reinstalling the package. This reader supplies usage, not GPU temperature. Integrated graphics can share system RAM with the CPU instead of having dedicated VRAM. The plugin currently selects this CLI only for i915, not xe.

For Intel usage, the source order is a kernel gpu_busy_percent counter, intel_gpu_top on i915, Fastfetch, XPU-SMI, and finally DRM fdinfo. Missing or failed readers are skipped. The fdinfo fallback covers only clients visible to the current user and may not represent the whole device. Btop’s own GPU panel uses an embedded i915 PMU reader. Any CAP_PERFMON granted to the btop executable applies only to btop and cannot be reused by the plugin.

NVIDIA GPUs

On supported NVIDIA systems, Omarchy normally installs nvidia-smi with the graphics driver utilities. It can supply usage, temperature, and VRAM. Check whether it already works:

nvidia-smi

If you use the current NVIDIA driver branch and its utilities are missing:

sudo pacman -S --needed nvidia-utils

nvidia-utils includes nvidia-smi. The utilities must match your installed driver branch. For example, a legacy nvidia-580xx installation needs its matching nvidia-580xx-utils package, not a blind switch to nvidia-utils. Follow your driver setup if the command reports a driver/library mismatch or cannot communicate with the GPU.

No Intel-style CAP_PERFMON setup is normally needed for these read-only NVIDIA queries. The plugin does not use nvidia-smi with Nouveau, and a working CLI still may report unsupported fields. This backend has not been hardware-tested here.

Intel discrete and data-center GPUs: XPU-SMI (experimental)

An additional xpu-smi adapter is implemented for Intel GPUs supported by that tool. It can supply usage, temperature, and memory, but it is not a general upgrade for older Intel integrated graphics.

This is not yet a verified Arch/Omarchy installation recipe. As checked on 2026-09-05, the AUR’s xpu-smi-bin package is orphaned, flagged out of date, and still at version 1.2.35. We do not recommend installing that package blindly just to fill a missing tooltip value.

A working installation needs the matching Intel GPU driver, Level Zero loader and GPU compute runtime, and the dependencies required by its XPU-SMI version. Follow Intel’s installation guidance for your device and release. Once xpu-smi is installed and available on the desktop session’s PATH, verify it as your normal user:

xpu-smi discovery -j
xpu-smi discovery -d 0 -j
xpu-smi stats -d 0 -j

Replace 0 with a device listed by discovery. Successful discovery alone is not enough: statistics must also be readable without root. If access is denied, follow that release’s device-permission guidance; do not assume the intel_gpu_top capability command applies here. We have not verified this backend’s installation, permissions, or live readings on suitable hardware.